r
SKETCHED
IN THE PYREXEE -
VOL I.
I
y><^°
M-o
SKETCHES IN THE PYRENEES
WITH SOME REMARKS
ON
LANGUEDOC, PROVENCE, AND
THE CORNICE.
BY THE AUTHOR OP
" SLIGHT REMINISCENCES OF THE RHINE," AND
" THE GOSSIP'S WEEK."
IN TWO VOLUME8.
VOL I.
LONDON :
LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMAN.
1837.
LONDON :
Maurice, Clark, and Co. Howford-buiUings,
Fenchurcri-street.
TO MY DAUGHTER,
IN WHOSE HAPPY HOME AND BEAR SOCIETY
I FIRST MADE CLOSE
AND DELIGHTFUL FELLOWSHIP WITH THE PYRENEES,
I INSCRIBE
THESE SLIGHT SKETCHES
or
THEIR INEFFABLE BEAUTY.
March 6, 1837.
CONTENTS
OF
THE FIRST VOLUME.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
Departure from Paris — Versailles and its Echoes — their
Secrets — Ramhouillet — Woods and Wood Gods — Plea-
sure-Gardens — Hunting and being hunted — Processions,
and their probable Effects — Dress — the Chateau and its
doubtful Waters — Country to Chartres — Cathedral Spires
— Cottages and Cottage Gardens 1
CHAPTER II.
Chartres — Old Cathedrals and their Associations — Castles
and Ghosts — a Ball-room Ghost — an Unbeliever — Cha-
teaudun — Vend6me — the Three Days — Water Mills —
Effect of a Fine Day — Decent Gaiety — Contrasts —
Bronzing and Baking 17
CHAPTER III.
Tours — First Effect — Sunshine — Moonlight — the Green
Bonnet — Names and their Magic — the Long Ago — First
Impressions — perhaps False Ones — Influence of English
Society — Society 32
V 111 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IV.
PAGE
Tours, continued — Advantages and Drawbacks — Old .Modes
and New Ones — Regrets — the Lady of Nantua, and her
Fan — Saints and Miracles — the Chateau of Plessis —
Hunting and Hunters — Legends — a Show-off— the Rappel
— Cathedral — Library and Bibles — the Dwellings in the
Rocks — Striking View and Immediate Scenery — the Ham-
let in the Forest — Cottage and Conscience Peacefulness ... 44
CHAPTER V.
Montbazon — Country to Ormes — Modern Chateaux and Old
Ones — Travellers' Miseries — the Plague of Cutlery — Un-
expected Delicacy — Chatellerault — Evening — the Black-
smith's Shop — Street Movement — Castles of Poitou —
Cottages Abroad and at Home — the Black Prince and the
Prince of Denmark — Poitiers — its Churches and its Battle-
Piece — Feodalism in its Beauty — Ruffec — Politics and the
Prefet — War and its Attractions 66
CHAPTER VI.
The Eve of St. John — Angouleme — a Mitred Muse and a
Gossiping Chamber-maid— Famity Customs — the Imitative
Faculty — Descent from Angouleme — Cavignac — Fete-
Dieu — Two Sides of the Canvas — the Bouquets of the
1 i te-Dieu — the liffect of the Ceremony on the Mind — Our
Neighbour — Anticipations — Cubzac — the F'eny-boat and
its Cargo — Bordeaux and Old Italy 89
CHAPTER VII.
Bordeaux — Coup-d'ceil — its Shows — Cathedral — St. Mi-
chael's Church and C'rvpt — the Giants of Bordeaux —
Women — Style of Beauty — Dress — My Titian — Green
and Violet — the Quays at Bordeaux and at Paris — Beauty
again — the Lady of Bordeaux — itsGreatMeu 108
CONTENTS. IX
CHAPTER VIII.
PAGE
Bordeaux, continued — the Drama — the Table — Coquettes
— Wines and Ladies — Bordeaux to Laugon — the Grey
Parrot and the Old Nun — French Peasantry — Langon —
the Chambermaid there — a Love Story — the Evening Lights
— Young Fancies — the Garonne — Forest Scenery 126
CHAPTER IX.
The Landes — an American Solitude — the Cottage in the
Landes not the true Desert — Roquefort — Aire — My De-
canter Stopper — Paradise Lost and Mont de Marsan — Doing
One's Duty — a Ghost — Something for nothing at an Inn —
Pine Forests — the Language of Trees — Dreaminess — Pet-
ticoated Cattle — Dress — Maize and Dust — the Pyrenees
— Vicinity to Spain, Associations awakened, and their
Necromancy — Valley of Pau — Pau and Old Beam 147
CHAPTER X.
Pau — Morning Scene — Processions — Henri Quatre — a Word
or two about him — the Spell of the South — the Mind and
Mystery of Landscape — the Castle and its Origin — Visit
to it — the View — the Turtle-shell — the Nurse's Cottage —
the Birmingham Queen — the Benefit of being Banner
Bearer — Rossini — the Castle at Evening — Twilight Magic 171
CHAPTER XI.
Road to Les Eaux Bonnes and Les Eaux Chaudes — Pasto-
rals — Spanish Children — Live Stock and Roses — the
Mountains — Arudy, and the Valley of Ossau — Women
of Ossau — Les Eaux Bonnes — the Old Tree — Wonders in
the Sky — Les Eaux Chaudes — Pau — the Viscomte D'Orthe
— Henry IV Royal Love-Letters— Bernadotte — Royal
Wisdom — a Fairy Tale 191
X CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XII.
PAGE
The Valleys of Pau — Early Princes of Beam — the Peasants
— their Character and Habits — All that can be done with a
Pig; — a Country Wedding — Nay and its Market — Chateau
d'Angosse — an Hour there on the Grass — Neighbourhood
of Pau revisited — Evening and Autumn — the Orfraie —
Old Customs and Superstitions — the Foreign Tomb —
Apron-pocket Notes 212
CHAPTER XIII.
Pau to Lestelle — Villages and Hamlets — Coaraze — Lestelle
— Seminarists and Pilgrims — Betharam — its Night Scenes
and Morning Decorum — Hawk Mountains and Eagle ones
— the Castle of Lourdes — Old Stories — a Magnanimous
Chatelain and a Treacherous Host — Soft Scenes and Hand-
some Women — the Love of Home 241
CHAPTER XIV.
Valley of Argelez — Beggars — Pierrefitte — the Gorge of
Cauteretz — Cauteretz — Watering-place Importunity 262
CHAPTER XV.
Cauteretz, continued — La Place de Cauteretz — Mineral
Springs — Chaises a Porteur — New mode of Begging —
Dearth of Walks — the Pare — Climate — Country Lads —
\\ by handsomer than Country Lasses — Hunters of the
present Time and the Past — Owls and Wisdom — the Bal-
lad — Words and Meanings 273
CHAPTER XVI.
Cauteretz, continued — Spaniards — their Stage Effect — Cau-
teretz — its Show Points and Peal Beauties — the Monne —
Grange de la Peine — Evening in the Mountains — Parisian
Troubadours — tfae .Muleteer and the .Mountain Shepherd —
Ira veiled Men — Vanity very like Philosophy 294
CONTENTS. XI
CHAPTER XVII.
PAGK
Cauteretz, continued — Hawkers, Literary and otherwise —
Books of the Day — Abuse of Talent — the Season opened —
the Easy Toilette — Climate — Music and its Illusions — the
Violin — All that may be done with it — the Poetry of Names
— Compensations — Superstition — its Comforts and its
Dangers — Long live the Fairies 308
CHAPTER XVIII.
Excursion to the Chateau Despourrins — the Mason's Eye
and the Poet's — the Mountaiu Minstrel — Clotilde — the
Paradise of St. Savin — the Abbey Church — Queen Marga-
ret's Visit — Monks and Maids of Honour — Monastic Idle-
ness — the Saint — Flies and Flowers — the Holy Man —
Return to Cauteretz — Wants — Beauty — a Watering-place
Conscience 325
CHAPTER XIX.
A Storm and its Effect on the Mind — Le Saint Suaire and its
Virtues — Excursion to Lac de Gaube — Opening of the
Valley of Marcadau — Marvellous Chairmen — Spanish Fan-
cies — my Rocking-horse — a Pause at the Ceriset — Dreams
interrupted — the Ceriset — Pont d'Espagne — Valley of the
Lac de Gaube — Character of its Scenery — Return at Even-
ing — Dancing Children — Fine Gold and Harder Metal .... 348
CHAPTER XX.
Politics at Cauteretz — Patriots, Real and Imaginary —
Hidden Treasures — a Way to get at them — the Ghost Seer
— the Chase — Day -break Noises — the Cry of the Hounds
Music and Painting compared — the Tambourin and the
Ballade of Bigorre — Idleness without Vice — the Balloon. 367
CHAPTER XXI.
Conversational Powers and their Value — Great Men often
great Talkers — Fine Talkers sometimes bad Writers, and
why 1 386
x ii CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XXII.
PAGE
Gorge and Basin of Luz — Luz to Bareges — Bareges— its
Population and its Springs — St. Sauveur— Opening of the
Valley of Gavarnie — the Bridge of Sia — Gedro and its
Grotto — Benefit of Ignorance — Valley of Heas, and its
Shrine — Pilgrims and Pilgrimages — the Pilgrim's Pro-
gress — How to judge others 391
CHAPTER XXIII.
Apology for my Donkey — Valley of Gavarnie, continued —
the Chaos— Too much Light — an Eagle wanting— Circus
of the Marbore, and the Wonders of its Amphitheatre — our
World and the World of Nature— Magic and Mystery —
No Spain— the Curate of Gavarnie— More Spaniards— Fan-
ciful Imaginings— Skulls of the Templars— the Poor Man's
Prayer the Hamlet at the Close of Evening— the Idiot
Boy — a Mountain Ballad— the Minstrel — the Fairy and
the Cagots — Darkness gathering — the Sable Visitor —
Chairmen, accomplished and otherwise 413
SKETCHES IN THE PYRENEES,
CHAPTER I.
DEPARTURE FROM PARIS VERSAILLES AND ITS ECHOES
THEIR SECRETS — RAMBOUILLET — WOODS AND WOOD
GODS — PLEASURE-GARDENS HUNTING AND BEING
HUNTED — PROCESSIONS, AND THEIR PROBABLE EF-
FECTS — DRESS THE CHATEAU AND ITS DOUBTFUL
WATERS COUNTRY TO CHARTUES CATHEDRAL SPIRES
— COTTAGES AND COTTAGE GARDENS.
One always seems to enter Paris, or quit it, on a
fete-day. This is one; and if I had not tears in
my eyes, and in my heart too, I might say some-
thing of its holiday aspect. But I was sad myself,
when we bid it adieu, and the gaiety of the crowd
made me still sadder ; so I felt relieved when we
turned off from the sparkling alleys of the Champs
Elysees into the well-known — but to-day deserted
— road to Versailles ; where, undistracted by new
images, I might indulge in recollected ones.
VOL. I. B
'Z DEPARTURE FROM PARIS.
There is always a queer sort of feel about the
heart, when the moment comes to leave a place
where one has lived long and happily, even though
there may be no actual severing of home ties ; but
especially when we carry with us that feeling of
doubt as to the future, which uncertain health
naturally communicates to the mind. Even the
grateful, well-wishing bow of the porter, — the last
whose face offers its expression of concern, — and
the cap off of his little son, who stands beside him
smartened up for the occasion, have something
touching in them ; they are not the supple civi-
lities of craving expectation anticipating future
favours, but the evidence of regret, — perhaps re-
gard, — whose cause is already in the past.
There are two roads from Paris to Tours : one
that follows the course of the Loire, passing
through its historical towns, and looking on its le-
gendary castles ; and another, which we have taken,
(for reasons altogether unconnected with any thing
either of taste or choice,) through Rambouillet,
Chartres, &c. There may be, and probably are
several others; but not having journeyed in their
wavs, I cannot answer for their being those of
pleasantness.
VERSAILLES AND ITS ECHOES. O
Every one knows, — that is to say every one who
has rambled this way, — the often-traversed road
from Paris to Versailles, the beautiful bank, of
Sevres, the hills of Meudon, and the rich woods
of St. Cloud. Not a salient point, scarcely a re-
treating charm, in this courtly yet sylvan land-
scape remains unexplored ; and English eyes are
as familiar with its beauty, as with the perfect
loveliness of Richmond Hill, or the patrician
elegance of Roehampton ; so I shall pass it over
in silence, without awakening the echoes. At
Versailles the sky was grey and still ; a sky put
together as if to suit and soften the effect of its
characteristic melancholy, which under the influ-
ence of a broad, inundating sunshine, changes its
complexional gloom into glare, — an arid though
gorgeous glare, that brings out every stone, and
writes desertion on them in gilt letters.
I have talked of not awakening the echoes ; but
of these second tongues, there are some here which,
were they Irish, — that is, answering-ones, it might
be curious to question ; for they could tell us
many a tale of hall and bower, and one with a
great moral lesson in it, — one beginning in pomp,
b 2
4 KAMBOUILLET.
beauty, glory, musk, embroidery, gallantry, and
prayer, — running through all the velvet paths of a
royal life, and all the rugged passages of a mortal
one, — from triumphs and almost heathen adoration,
to defeat and utter loneliness. Then merging into
another, these initiated echoes might follow that
also through the zig-zags of a naturally kind, but
feeble nature, to its last stage of abasement and
corruption, — deep corruption, from whose vile soil
sprang an immortal flower, and with it the deadly
tares which darkened its beauty, rendering it hi-
deous in the eyes of the virtuous and the pitying.
The echoes must have made sad music then ; now
they are silent, except when the great waters play,
and then the voice of wonder, or of glee, calls up
those vocal shadows.
The country to Rambouillet seemed insipid, —
perhaps I might boldly say, is. St. Cyr was on
our route, but we passed it unknowingly, with its
recollections of Esther and Athalie, and other
chaste and brilliant devices with which the antique
Schehezerade amused the leisure of her admiring
sultan. The first peep of the forest of Rambouillet
was disappointing; it seemed, as we approached
WOODS AND WOOD GODS. 5
the town, somewhat meagre and transparent :
dwarf Dryades, fit only to huddle round a road-
side box, belied the beautiful name of forest, — that
other word for mystery, — that whispering word so
full of promises, which the thin trees, looking like
side-scene decorations, were absolutely incapable of
performing.
However, there were some real trees, and in the
Pare (which is fresh and verdant) some stately
ones; we did not see much of it, though the
wood gods, more demonstrative than the Versailles
echoes, beckoned to us from the end of a long
green alley, and might have tempted us to their
haunts, had it been an hour earlier; for we saw their
fantastic shadows playing with the last sunbeams
on the grass, and almost heard the music of their
reeds ; yet we shook our heads at them, and turned
away like the lady in Comus. The chateau looked
royally dull — not noble; and has the air of being
rather disrespectfully shoved into a corner, with
all its historical recollections about it, — the last
days of Francis I., the bright ones of Louis XIV.,
and the recent story of humiliated royalty.
Except its recollections and its state-bed, it has
(I believe) little else to boast of. I do not know
6 PLEASURE-GARDENS.
whether the flower-knots and straight pieces of
water spread out before the palace are called plea-
sure-grounds ; but if they are, the same words
have a very different signification in the Blenheim
dictionary. This is Chinese scenery, where a dis-
located lady, with her head on one side, might pad-
dle about in a painted skiff, and seem quite of a
piece with her accompaniments. Formal gardens
hold their beauty less as a possession, than a grant
on certain conditions of care and nicety, which
grant is rendered void by neglect. The wild
flowers and gadding branches, whose rude luxu-
riance accommodates itself to the ins and outs of
natural scenery, assume, when they find their way
into a trim enclosure, a briary and forgotten aspect
that misbecomes the quaint parterre, shaped into
the precise counterpart of its opposite neighbour.
The parterres of Rambouillet look at this moment
foul and tangled, the palace varnish fast rubbino-
off"; and neglect, like the brown paper of a lac-
quered screen, begins to show itself through the
crevices.*
• When the above was written, Rambouillet belonged to
the state, and not to the king. It does so still ; but is let
to a wealthy individual.
HUNTING AND BEING HUNTED. 7
No one comes here now, the people tell us. In
the time of Charles Dix there was rare hunting in
the forest ; and the jocund sound of the horn, and
the cheery clamour of the day-break sportsman,
often routed the morning shadows. But the
crowned Nimrod hunted a day too late, and was
run down himself on that memorable third of
August, when the men of Paris, laying violent
hands on all the vehicles, public or private, that
came in their way, dislodged their occupants with
a civil speech, and a promise of restitution without
injury when done with;* then stuffing in, drove
off to Rambouillet to set up a new Jupiter, and
hand the old dynasty out of the kingdom. Here
the Duchesse de Berri bade adieu to the battered
remains of the Swiss guards, with a brusque " au
revoir;" 1 and here began that famous steeple-chase,
that hedge and ditch gallop, when the old racer
was flung out, beaten, broke down, and erased
from the list of running horses.
These things are still the other day of time, but
begin to be the auld lang syne of memory. Ex-
* A promise in all cases (as we have been assured)
conscientiously fulfilled.
8 HUNTING AND BEING HUNTED..
cept where the high-spirited duchess, like another
Anjou, Margarets it in the west, shedding blood
fruitlessly, therefore, even in the sense of war,
unwisely, — exasperating some, inspiring others,
and neutralizing the effect of her courage and per-
severance, her noble and undeniable contempt of
danger, by her ill regulated head-work, the old
stock seem as much forgotten at Gratz,* as James
was at St. Germain. Whether the new Charles
Edward may find another Culloden, and a luckier
one than the old, time will tell ; but should the
royal exiles be inclined to superstition, there exists
an historical parallel — close beyond any other on
record — which may well alarm them for the issue.
When the Count de Montford, beaten at Nantes
by the Duke of Normandy, was a prisoner in the
Louvre, his army discomfited, his cause hopeless,
the heroic Joan of Flanders, his undaunted wife,
presented her infant son to the people of Rennes,
and thus addressed them in the simple home eoine-
speech of the times. " Haa, seigneurs ! ne vous
gbahessez mie de Monseigueur, que nous auons
perdu. Le n'estoit qu'un homme, veez cy mon
* At least l>y the volatile Parisians.
PROCESSIONS. y
petit enfant ; qui sera (si Dieu plaist) son restorier,
et vous fera des biens assez." 11
Maria Theresa did the same : both were suc-
cessful. Perhaps, had the Duchesse de Berri re-
membered the historical precedent of the illustrious
countess, or the more immediate example of her
own fair ancestress, she might have still preserved
for her son the possession of a crown. At least,
the chance was on the cards.
As we entered Rambouillet, the bells were tolling
in a procession of children attired, as for their first
communion, in all the coquetry of toilette which
virgin white and flowers admitted of, — veils float-
ing, sashes streaming, and red hands clasping the
prayer-book, and contriving to grasp the well-
starched handkerchief at the same time. Before
the children walked two priests, chaunting in the
deep cathedral base; behind, two others blowing
through the deeper- toned bassoon, whose grave
and gradual swell came on the ear with a solemn
and almost threatening sound, that strengthened
into something judicial and condemnatory as it
approached. I never hear this peculiar chaunt
without thinking of the gone-by times, when nuns
b3
10 PROCESSIONS.
were buried, and heretics burned alive, — a dark
association, but soon dispelled by the innocent
faces of the children, and the bustling piety of
their anxious friends.
If there were not some distraction, and much
vying in these things, they would be pretty, and
even touching ; for children give grace and interest
to all rituals, in which their natural feelings may be
supposed to make them untutored actors. But no
sooner was the show of devotion over, than the
young performers flew back to their expecting
mothers, to have their sashes settled and their veils
arranged ; and this mundane movement seemed to
make hypocrisy of the pious airs and expressions
of humility, which they had exhibited but a few-
moments before. Yet still, as they dispersed
among the trees, or descended two by two a flight
of stone steps that graduate gently into the Pare,
their childish forms and innocent-looking dress
imaged purity very pleasingly.
Whether the species of emulation engendered
by religious exhibitions, (I say religious ones, be-
cause they are almost the only public shows in
which children decently brought up are permitted
THEIR PROBABLE EFFECTS. 11
to appear,) be or be not favourable to piety and
moral feeling, cannot, I should think, admit of a
question. The idea of dress, of admiration, of
rivalship ; the stimulus of praise, the desire of out-
doing others, awakened probably for the first time,
mingle with the sentiment of devotion, and weaken,
if they do not wholly efface it. Children become
for the moment public actors, conscious of having
all eyes upon them, and of course each is desirous
to play the first part; thus vanity — which nine
times in ten engenders envy, — is brought into
action, and the religious impression, which re-
tirement would have strengthened, is probably
either perverted or destroyed.
Sometimes a religious ceremony is made an
instrument by which the spirit of intolerance is
grafted into the young mind. I recollect once —
it was the day of the fete-dieu at Montmorenci —
a sharp little girl telling me that the procession
was not to pass along the Hermitage road ; adding,
with a significant shake of the head, " a cause de
Jean Jacques.''' If there was not more mercy in
heaven than man shows to man, what would be-
come of the best of us? For more than half a
12 DRESS.
century the body of the sceptic (if such he really
was) has been mouldering in its tomb; and still the
spot in which he breathed and suffered is deemed
— because he breathed and suffered in it — too im-
pure for the contact of holiness. How arrogant is
the piety of man ! — man who is forbidden to judge,
lest he should be judged in return. And yet we
have had our lesson : the divine founder of our
faith, he in whom there could be no sin, sat down
by the well-side, and talked with the woman of
Samaria, "who worshipped she knew not what;""
and suffered Mary Magdalen, " which was a sin-
ner," to minister unto him.
This is a bell-ringing place, but not holy, as
the chambermaid informs us ; neither is it other-
wise, (same authority); but a kind of medium heat,
like the interior of St. Petei-'s at Rome, which,
whether the snow falls or the sun blazes, always
preserves the same equal temperature. Women
prodigiously smart, but evidently no subscribers
to the Petit Cony) ier des Dames, yet self-satisfied
and happy in their voluminous borders standing
boldly up from their foreheads, and then branching
out like the wings of a Madagascar bat, as they
DOUBTFUL WATERS. 13
could possibly be in the last close fit of the imagi-
native Herbault.*
Drove through part of the Pare, — perhaps not
the best part; it is green and lawny, but in its
wide extent there are probably scenes much more
beautiful than those which lay in our way, or it
would not merit its high reputation. Not much to
remark between Rambouillet and Chartres ; at
Epernon (I believe) nothing ; at Maintenon, a cha-
teau with a considerable display of — stagnant water
I was going to say, misled by its green and yel-
low stillness; but I believe it is living, though it
makes no sign. This chateau was one of the dona-
tions of Louis Quatorze to the calculating devotee,
who ran (or rather hobbled) away from him when
he lay on his death-bed. Pious, placid, and moral
lady ! who thoroughly understood the tactics of
virtue, and possessed every ingredient of religion
excepting its true spirit.
Dull plains with a distant belt of wood, and then
* I forget in what year Scheffer painted his Charlotte
Corday, which has so completely revolutionized the French
women's heads ; but I believe about this time. Now they
are all flat and compressed, like the Norman Judith's.
14 CATHEDRAL SPIRES.
duller ones without it. Dropped asleep ; awoke
the next moment, — yellow fields and brown ones
alternating ; hay-making, too, but the after-grass
like dust.
Another nap; and then a jolt which roused me
thoroughly. All corn, with a splendid show of
poppies mixing with the quiet azure of the corn-
flower. Might, perchance, have shut my eyes again,
had they not happened to light upon two tall spires,
looking grand and grave in the distance, and — I
thought — like the spires of a church or college
(I forget which) that I used to love and admire in
Bentley's edition of Grays Poems. But that was in
my childish days — a long time ago ; so I cannot be
precise, though I well remember the mourning
cats with scarfs and hatbands, and the leaden-eyed
melancholy which I used to think so divinely
beautiful.
The descent to Chartres varies the monotony of
the scene a little. It has wood, and houses niched
in it, and a long suburb of clay cottages and clay
walls, standing out in a bright sun, with a comfort-
able air which belongs more to the sun than to the
habitations. These, though not sketch-book helps,
COTTAGES. 15
have, in the absence of other beauties, the eminent
one of cleanliness. From Rambouillet onwards, the
dwelling of the peasant has something of a neat
and habitable air : vines are trained, and trees plan-
ted about it ; and the paths before the door actually
swept, — a mark of nicety not always evident in
places nearer to the capital. I do not speak of
these habitations as orderly, sash-windowed con-
cerns; but as quiet homely huts, in which Gains-
borough, or perhaps Morland, might, on a soft be-
coming day such as this is, have found something
pleasant. I say a becoming day, for humble
scenery of the cottage kind is a pastoral or a
pigsty, just as the sky pleases.
But when the sun does shine, what a sweet page
of rustic lore is the cottage-garden ! no stone or
mortar perfection of a wall — the mason's glory —
enclosing it; but its own sweet hedge blossoming,
and blooming, and glistening in the bright sky,
and opening its pretty buds as if it would say
" thank you," to the warm air that blows upon it.
I have always delighted in the neatly drilled beds
of peas and beans, the tufts of sage and rosemary,
and other plants esteemed medicinal by their cul-
16 COTTAGE GARDENS.
tivators ; the ornamental rose-bush, and tree of
luxury — apple or pear, and never could love fine
gardens — stiff ones, I mean, — without one robin
redbreast corner in them ; where, if a poor bird
hops about, it is from the shoulder of one cold
statue to the head of another, and the bee is too
far away from his hive, his thymy bank, and his
honey-cups, to make frequent visits. Pleasure-
grounds may run into whims, if they please; but
the dear old garden has something sacred in its
homeliness, which one respects as one does an old
library-chair, or a worm-eaten folio that counts
ages. The velvet sofa is there, soft and gorgeous,
and the morocco leather gilt and embossed ; but
we are loath to use them, and better love the old
corner, and the old leaves which open almost of
themselves at the places we are fond of. In a gar-
den, every thing should accord with the habitation
to which it belongs. Erasmus's catalogue of herbs,
— rue, all-heal, buglass, marjoram, herb of life, &c.
become the gammer's scanty flower-knot, as the
standard fruit-tree, the nectarine-wall, the winter-
walk, and the yew hedge do our old-fashioned
manor house.
CHARTRES. \"J
CHAPTER II.
CHARTRES — OLD CATHEDRALS AND THEIR ASSOCIATIONS
CASTLES AND GHOSTS A BALL-ROOM GHOST AN
UNBELIEVER — CHATEAUDUN — VENDOME THE THREE
DAYS — WATER MILLS — EFFECT OF A FINE DAY — DE-
CENT GAIETY CONTRASTS BRONZING AND BAKING.
Chartres has a large hot square, or rather circus,
all in a blaze to-day ; and fine boulevard walks
canopied with foliage, and a superb cathedral,
owner of the two steeples already mentioned. One
is rich in the finely-pierced and elaborate fretwork
of gothic architecture ; the other stands beside it in
simpler guise, like a waiting gentlewoman, — no dis-
paragement either to abigail or spire, for every one
knows that though the mistress may be the finest,
the maid is often the fairest of the two ; and as for
the steeples, each is esteemed perfect in its way.
For myself, I must acknowledge, that the rich light-
ness of the ornamented one pleased me more than
the heavy simplicity of its neighbour, which may
18 OLD CATHEDRALS.
be bad taste ; but as my guide-book does not tell
me which to admire, I must e'en run risks.
Of the interior of this fine cathedral I can say
nothing, not having seen it. An accident has de-
barred me from what I should consider as an espe-
cial pleasure, for I greatly love old cathedrals; they
are not merely missals, but histories glowingly il-
luminated, every colour fresh as the Madonna blue
on the soft vellum. When I roam about their
venerable aisles, and look on their quaint monu-
ments, where the knight of the Holy Land sleeps in
effigy, his feet upon the emblematic lion, his head
upon the small stone bolster ; and by his side his
loyal spouse, her hands crossed upon her breast, the
lion exchanged for the gentle and faithful grey-
hound, and the countenance devout and penetrated,
even in its stony stillness; my mind receives an
impression similar to that which is made on it by
the perusal of Shakspeare's historical plays. The
lord cardinals, the mitred churchmen — Canter-
bury, York, and Winchester ; kings and confes-
sors, queens who found no shriving time ; abbots,
legates, coronations, and interments, — the pageants
of the age, — and those who figured in them, rise up
AND THEIR ASSOCIATIONS. 19
before me in their living lineaments ; every stone
is a record, every sculptured niche an illustration :
and this feeling, though deeper and more awakened
when the mind meditates the past within the an-
tique and sacred edifices of its mother-land, is still
powerful and present with me in the grey cathedrals
of France, many of which were erected during those
periods of its history, when wars and alliances
brought this country most in contact with our own.
The cathedral of Chartres is one of the lonjr S e-
quency of churches erected during the period when
the English were masters of many of the south-
western provinces of France ; and which mark the
time of their lordship over possessions, ages since
returned to a more natural allegiance, and show
proof of the fine prevailing taste in sacred archi-
tecture which distinguished — what present civili-
zation calls a rude period, pervading the religious
structures of those olden days with the sentiment
as well as the aspect of holiness, and giving to their
dark and stately masses a power over the mind,
rarely produced by modern gorgeousness, and
still more rarely by modern meanness — miscalled
simplicity, — which whitewashes its barn, and with
20 OLD CATHEDRALS.
a horror of idolatry greater than even that of
Moses himself, allows no mark of art or honour,
except the small token of upholstery visible in the
stuffed seats and curtained pews of the parish aris-
tocracy. There is a subterraneous church under
the cathedral, believed by the people to be an
ancient grotto of the druids ; who, from the depths
of the forests which once (according to old writers)
covered the face of the country, prophesied and
sacrificed. But being converted to Christianity
by certain disciples of our Saviour, sent into Gaul
by St. Peter, and afterwards persecuted by their
Roman masters, concealed themselves within this
same grotto, where they found a place of refuge and
of prayer; and which, — when Constantino brought
better times, — became the base of the cathedral,
then constructed upon it with remarkable magni-
ficence. A certain number of old women called les
dames de sousterre, or les saeiws de sousterre,
were employed to take care of it, and attend to the
lamps, &c. ; the last died (as we are told) a short
time since, and the office has fallen into desuetude.
Still the same bare and quiet country, — with
now and then a preponderance (as in many parts
CASTLES AND GHOSTS. 21
of France) of wide plains seeming to touch the
horizon, and giving what may be called — if the
expression be not inadmissible — distance without
perspective. At Chateaudun, an old castle looks
forwards from an abrupt hill, with a river at its
feet, — a river of many windings, that makes its way
pleasantly through a fertile valley. They tell me
this chateau has trap-doors and galleries, chapels,
tombs, and knightly halls ; in short, all the attri-
butes of a castle of gallant and courtly recollec-
tions, every stone of whose pavement has doubtless
been pressed by the small footsteps of bright ladies,
and the spurred heels of gallant cavaliers, — at least
it is pleasant to think so, and to find records in the
fancy, when one has not time or means to seek for
them in the family archives. One thing is however
wanting, — an article too of necessity in a proper old
castle establishment,— a ghost. None walk abroad
here ; but ghosts are known to be of solitary habits,
preferring utter loneliness; or, if sent on missions,
a tete-a-tete, to any other form of society. So
it is possible, that the gregarious taste of the
porter's family, who, though six in number, and
of both sexes and various degrees of relationship,
22 A BALL-ROOM GHOST.
think it most agreeable (and merely for the sake of
sociability, fear being entirely out of the question)
to occupy the same dormitory, may have frightened
them oft' their ground.
I did once hear of a ball-room ghost. It was
the spectre of a lady, the wife of an Irish peer ;
who, being ill and counselled not to go to a certain
masquerade, replied with vehemence, " I shall be
there, dead or alive;" and kept her word, for
(though she died in the mean while) there she
was : and some, who had been at her funeral, saw
her walking up and down in a corner of the ball-
room, which either from the influence of terror,
or from supernatural hindrance, none approached.
Her mask and domino were white ; but the face
and form were strongly and fearfully visible
through them. It was an eye-witness who told me
the story, believing it firmly, but denying his belief,
as is usual in such cases. Reason examines, but
credulity, when questioned, takes offence, and
brings out its no boldly.
All the gens d'armes, and half the National
Guards of Chateaudun, are gone to anticipate
(which sometimes means create) an expected dis-
CHATEAUDUN. 23
turbance in a village two leagues off. At every
little town on our way, our passports are scrupu-
lously examined, and the names, &c. copied and
despatched to Paris. All travellers are submitted
to the same inspection, and consequent delay. In
the absence of the gens d'armes, to whom this busi-
ness is especially entrusted, a commissaire de police
waited on us officially. I asked him if there was
any news from La Vendee, — any thing that con-
firmed the horrible report of theDuchesse de Berri
having been burned to death in the Chateau de Pen-
nessaire. He replied, with much sang-froid, that
he had heard such a rumour, but did not believe
it: he, for his part, never believed rumours; he
did not believe there was such a castle, much less
that it had been attacked, or burned ; seemed to
question the existence of the Chouans, and rather
to consider the Duchesse de Berri as an agreeable
phantasmagoria. He had been too long in the
army (he said) to put faith in any thing, especially
things that were printed. This ancient county of
Dunois gave its name to the renowned Count de
Dunois, (the famous Bastard of Orleans,) who,
united with Jeanne d'Arc, gained a great victory
24 VENDOME.
over our armies at Patay, and made Talbot pri-
soner. The portal of the royal abbey of Saint
Magdelene is mentioned by old historians as among
the most ancient in France.
Some gentle river scenery and a pretty mill at
Cloye, and just before it a true French chateau of
the old style, — Tonerre — or Trompette — or Hea-
ven knows what, with a rich bristling of all sorts of
things on and about it. Out in the name, which
happens to be Montigny, though either of mine
would do. As we advance, the country becomes
more agreeable, the surface more varied ; fretpaent
wooded banks, and a general air of pleasantness.
Country houses " few and far between, 11 but not
however like the visions of angels; but old, odd
things, to which the high chimneys, straight roofs,
and supplementary turrets, give an antique and
castellated air. Vendome is agreeably placed on
the Loir, (not Loire,) the same river that looked
pretty at Cluye, and which turns its mills here in
the midst of cheerful scenery. Remarked a c. trch
porch curiously sculptured, — and more than one,
but only in passing. Often the exterior of those
old churches is the best part ; the inside being not
THE THKEE DAYS. . 25
•
unfrequently whitewashed and gaudified out of its
antique duskiness. Vendome did once, and per-
haps does still, possess a famous abbey — la Trinite,
and in the collegial church the tombs of its ancient
counts ; but whether the revolution may have
spared or destroyed them, I know not. Town full
of soldiers and looking menacing, as if it stood
on the threshold of La Vendee. It is probably to
its western vicinity that we owe the show of alle-
giance to present circumstances, which forces itself
into notice in this country. The feeling does not,
however, seem to lie deep ; the fruits of the three
immortal days have not ripened so rapidly as those
who sowed their seeds looked for ; and expectation,
having long outrun performance, — perhaps possi~
bility, — sits down disappointed and repining.
But what days they were ! I have heard it
asked contemptuously, and even by Frenchmen,
" Qira-t-on fait de bien ?" But it seems to me,
that a Frenchman, be his political creed what it
may.r je he Carlist, republican, or legitimist,
should never hear those three days named without
a proud and reverential feeling. For three days a
great and populous city remained without a govern-
vol. i. c
26 THE THREE DAYS.
ment, a police, or a military force ; the people
sole and absolute rulers ; power in the hands of
poverty, licence within the reach of the long re-
pressed ; yet not an outrage committed, not an
article of private property purloined ; the stranger
and the feeble respected, and even hunger refusing
to appease its cravings unlawfully ! What a sub-
lime page of history !
And how unlike the common course of other
revolutions, brought about by similar means. Pub-
lic indignation (alloyed, perhaps, in some instances
by party spirit or individual views) pulls down an
edifice raised with — it may be — mixed wisdom and
unwiseness, but placed in trust with the weak or
the unfaithful. The people, unaccustomed to the
exercise of political power, but under the strong
influence of political excitement, lay their unqua-
lified hands on the fragments which lie heaped
before them ; and without stopping to separate the
precious parts from the rubbish, either cast them
away, or break them up into distorted forms.
The reckless, but often noble spirits who helped
mainly to unbase the edifice, are often buried un-
der its ruins ; and those who stood by and shouted
WATER-MILLS. 27
while it rocked to its foundation, or set the brand
to its tottering walls, take forcible possession of
the wreck, — not with the calm, sustained courage
of freed men, but with the licentious violence of
manumitted slaves. It was thus in the old French
revolution; great wrongs were avenged by great
crimes. When the desolation has passed away,
then the temple is again raised up ; but the cement
is blood, and the base, ashes.
I have always had a fancy for water-mills, and
seldom look on one, if it be attached to any
thing cottage-like, without thinking of Ralph and
Fanny,* and all the charming illusions of my
first opera. On a raw wintry morning, a water-
mill may talk of damp and rats, and other com-
fortless things ; but on such a day as this is, its
cool gushing sound and spattery playfulness are
delicious both to ear and eye. They are frequent
here; and the towns being cheerfully situated,
some on pleasant eminences, and all with cool
walks and foliage about them, give to the general
* Vide Maid of the Mill.
C 2
28 EFFECT OF A FINE DAY.
air of the country (bare bits excepted) a character,
which may be pronounced, — at least with the sky
of to-day on it, — decidedly agreeable.
But there is something so happy, — I might al-
most say so good, in a lovely day ; it brings out
beauty, as a kind word does the timid feelings of
the retiring heart, — so gently and so sweetly, that
we can hardly be out of sorts even with an un-
amiable looking nature, (I was going to say a
blank one; but nature is never blank,) when the
bright sun is shining and the soft shadows play-
ing on it ; and take common pleasantness to our
bosoms, as if we had never followed higher idola-
tries. To-day the hedges, starred with innume-
I'able eyes of pink and daisy ; the little gardens
tufted with sweet marjoram, lettuce, or purple
thyme ; the currant-bush, green elder, honey-
suckle, and other humble things, — buds, leaves,
and flowers, still with their spring freshness on
them, create a charming country feeling in the
mind, all the more heartfelt for its homeliness.
This is just the day for the wild stream and the
bank of violets, for the thrush's song and the lin-
net's, and for the pretty yellow wagtail, — the little
DECENT GAIETY. 29
shepherdess of the spring, who hops about with its
bright pecking air among the sheep. In France,
a department may be sometimes known by the
form of its belfries. Here the thin tapering spire
rises up from a tuft of trees, or a cluster of low
roofs in every village ; sometimes a long and steep
roof, set all over with projecting windows and
flanked with tall chimneys, shows itself through a
thick wood, bending my fancy to the chateaux of
the Boccage, or Beaupreau, — the new Jerusalem,
and with a Lusignan, too, amongst the high defen-
ders of its antique faith and old allegiance.
I can never cease to admire the quiet, yet
awakened spirit, in which the people in France
convene for purposes either of business or amuse-
ment. Fetes being things of frequent occurrence,
are for that very reason soberly, though really, en-
joyed : the mass is heard, the gossip indulged in,
the southern farandoule or northern quadrille per-
formed, all with due decorum and sustained cheer-
fulness, but with a total absence of the giddy ex-
citation produced by unusual circumstances ; and
the whole seems more like a pleasant and accus-
tomed pause from labour, than an unexpected jerk
30 CONTRASTS.
out of toil into riot, which is too often the cha-
racter of mirthful meetings in countries vaunting
their morality more boldly. The market traffic,
commonly a turbulent barter of commodities, is
here a quiet interchange of benefits. We passed
through two crowded market-places to-day, and
are now entering a third, — women marvellously
plain, the young looking old, and the old brown
and glazed as gingerbread, but models of neatness,
from the well-bleached head-cloth to the tidy shoe,
or clattering sabot.
It is well they are so, for nothing but its neatness
could redeem the stout linen cap — the French night-
cap, as it used to be called, or the forehead-binder,
opposing its mass of dead white to the scorched
and blazing skin, and contradicting all that Ovid
has said on the subject of contrasts. Nothing less
than a downright Hebe could stand it, and the
gods would be sorely puzzled to find a cup-bearer
amongst the bandle-cloth and egg-baskets which
we have at this moment in view. In Italy the
sun bronzes, in France it bakes : the fishermen of
Naples and its coast are like bronze statues; the
women too, of the same class, often (though not
BRONZING AND BAKING. 31
always) deeply tinged; but when young, their
skins are usually soft and equal. Here the tanning
is of a dryer kind, or perhaps the surface on which
it acts.
Magnificent roads, and posting worthy of them ;
and, though still regretting the royal towers of
Chambord, the Castle of Blois — itself a history,
Chaumont with its "forme religieuse^ and Chante-
loup, the Dawley of the Due de Choiseul, yet I
begin to think that for one journeying, like myself,
in search of health, the exchange of the Loire, its
castles and its associations, for our Macadamized
roads and common-place scenery, is wise at least,
if not poetical.
32 TOURS.
CHAPTER III.
TOURS FIRST EFFECT SUNSHINE — MOONLIGHT — THE
GREEN BONNET NAMES AND THEIR MAGIC — THE LONG
AGO — FIRST IMPRESSIONS PERHAPS FALSE ONES — IN-
FLUENCE OF ENGLISH SOCIETY SOCIETY.
The approach to Tours is imposing. The Loire
sweeps by with a calm and noble flow, deriving
from its own breadth and fulness the character of
dignity which nature has, in this particular spot,
denied to its banks; for whatever may elsewhere be
their claim to lofty or romantic beauty, here they
are low, and but for their fine and strong point,
the town would be almost featureless. The scene
is however largely composed, and there is a calm
Flemish colouring about it that, like the dewy soft-
ness of a Swanveldt, or an Ostade, refreshes with-
out exciting the fancy. The bridge is splendid ;
and the ample river, the boats at anchor or in
movement, and the architectural preface which the
SUNSHINE AND MOONLIGHT. 33
old towers put forth, form altogether a fair and
pleasant picture, with some green and woody bits
about it, that rise agreeably above the general
tone. This seems poor praise for a view which
has so often been extolled to the very skies ; but I
describe it as it strikes me, and though my impres-
sion may be a wrong one, I cannot borrow that of
another.
It is true, that certain views require certain
lights ; and that many change, like the hues of a
drake's neck, from a ray to a blot, as the sun shines
or darkens on them. If the day be bright, an open
river-view is all warmth and sparkle : if the next
be grey, it is cold and dull : we perceive that its
beauty was the effect of a favourable casualty,
and scarcely know it for the same scene which the
great sleight-of-hand master had warmed into pic-
ture. Moonlight is, however, the true setting off
of calm, broad, silvery scenery, where a river forms
the great feature, and the dependent landscape is
just enough indented to throw down shadows on
its lucid bosom : the wide blue sky so full of hope,
the earth of peacefulness, the long track of light,
compact yet broken, marking its starry way on the
c3
34 THE GREEN BONNET.
waters, and the tall spire rising from its dark base
and growing gleamy in the moonshine, are sweet
ingredients of which the mind makes magic.
Once upon a time, — it was in summer days,
when all things put on their best looks, I chanced
to be in the habit of seeing a young lady (not
knowing her) always in the same dress, and always
— as I thought — with the same pretty, piquant,
original look which had at first sight charmed my
fancy. She never changed her bonnet ; it was a
capote of bright, tender, grasshopper green, that
closed in upon her small round cheek, just as spring
leaves might do about a pretty pink flower. When-
ever the little green bonnet was seen approaching,
my companions used to say, "Here comes your
beauty f 1 and I was proud of my taste until winter
came, and with it a black velvet hat, — a French
contrivance, — unveiling the face, which proved to be
a bi'oad one, and lined with a spread of full-blown
roses, that turned the tinting of the cheek to violet,
and seemed to enlarge a forehead which had no
longer any shade upon it, and was formed to look
bold without it. If not an absolute red cabbage,
hard-cored and sturdy, she was at least no longer
NAMES AND THEIR MAGIC. 35
my pretty pink flower set in green leaves, but
serves to illustrate the text of drakes 1 necks and
sunshine.
We knew something of this historical Touraine
formerly, when our turbulent kings wrote their
names in its chronicles ; when our second Henry
married provinces, or gained them ; and his son
John promised them away again, and the Lady
Blanch with them, — that fair Blanch whom Shaks-
peare has chronicled so soothly.
Anjou, Touraine, Poitou, — what fine old names !
and how their very sound calls up those giving and
taking, winning and losing times; when, with our
hands full at home, we still found time to vary our
domestic strifes with other "just and charitable
wars" abroad. Nearer things are often forgotten,
or vaguely recalled ; but the long ago comes to the
mind when the associating link is touched, each
event classed, each figure identified, just as the
days of youth do to the memory of age, that takes
no note of yesterday ; or the far perspective to the
decaying sight, to which near objects seem con-
fused and colourless.
There is something in the sound of the old Loire
36' NAMES AND THEIR MAGIC.
— that river of past times, so long what might be
almost called the line of demarcation between the
ancient country of the Franks and the independent
sovereignties which, being now amalgamated with
it, form the great kingdom of France, — that gives
a powerful historical interest to this spot. Names
have often a cunning magic in them; here the very
air is full of their power, full of those ancient ones
which queens and noble ladies wore in honour — or
otherwise, but whose antique simplicity is so beau-
tiful. A soft and simple surname mingles charm-
ingly with a proud hereditary denomination ; the
last (allied to old remembrances) gives a loftiness
to the first, and derives from it a womanly and
tender naivete. What proud yet loving names are
Mary Stuart and Jane Grey ! and here Eleanor
de Guyenne, — a proud yet gentle name, which
would have well designated a purer spirit than
hers was who bore it ; Margaret of Anjou, another
of the same cast and appropriation ; Marie de
Gonzagues, whom Cinq Mars loved and wooed
in the embowered shades of Chaumont; with other
intervening ones that make sweet music to the
ear, are with us. The old links, sometimes of
THE LOXG AGO. 3J
flowers, sometimes of iron, which formerly united
us with France, have so blended the country of
the Loire with our historical recollections, that it
lias — if it be not incongruous to say so, — all the
charming odour of that never-to-be-forgotten thino-
—our first story-book. Every spot here brings
back the time when monarchs fought their own
battles, when history was often poetry, though
written in rough rhymes, and too often in san-
guinary characters ; when kings — and not those of
Brentford either — entered by souud of trumpet,
one at the right hand door, the other at the left, to
talk away provinces, or barter kingdoms ; while
dames — and proud ones — stood bv,each backing her
party with royal Billingsgate : the one a cankered
grandam and a queen, the other w a sad and pas-
sionate lady ;" but both inexhaustible of speech
and rancour, and one of them the most distressed
— since Xiobe — and lost of mothers.*
But we have more flappers here. Walter Scott
has rebuilt Plessis les Tours with a master hand
and an enchanted trowel, which will Ions' outlast
the stone and mortar of the grand reliqnaire,
* Vide Shakspeare's King John.
38 FIRST IMPRESSIONS.
Maitre Pierre, who contrived to die, and, as it
happened, in that identical castle, though hung
over from stem to stern with life preservers from
all the shrines of Christendom.
But it is time to enter Tours, the chief city
of this fair Touraine, which presents itself like a
capital, with a splendid street (la Rue Royale)
opening from the bridge and traversing the heart
of what, but for it, might be deemed an ordinary
country town, but to which this great artery gives
life and action. The first view is striking, — gav,
handsome, and perfectly metropolitan ; but there is
something glaring about it, something (I fancied)
demonstratively dressy and tea-drinking in the street
groupes, and awful in the report of a frequented
mall (mail,) still called by its old-fashioned name,
so full of red heels and patches, where (as in most
places of similar resort) the private history of every
passing individual is probably caught and spitted
for inspection, as humane children transfix a cock-
chafer, and where there is, doubtless, circle within
circle, like the filigree globes of an Indian toy. But
I have formed my idea of Tours and its society from
rpport, coloured perhaps by prejudice; and there is
PERHAPS FALSE ONES. 39
certainly something very impertinent in a stranger
like myself probablying and perhapsing — as far as
in her lies — a place out of its reputation, though
without any means of judging, except those limited
ones afforded by a drive through the streets, and
a lounge at the inn window. Perhaps the mall is
deserted, the people the best-natured in the world,
no tea drank, and dress at simplicity point. It
may be, that all the household, fire-side loving
deities who preside over Tours, may just now be
railing at me from their high heavens, and setting
me down as an impudent empty blockhead — for
the gods call names — who talks instead of inquir-
ing. Alas ! what traveller, whether his journey be
to the town's end, or the world's end, does not do
so sometimes ! •
Every place, however, has its local physiognomy,
and Tours I must think a very decided one. It is
not the usual physiognomy of a French provincial
town, but rather one that seems to have been con-
ferred upon it by its English population, and its
English system of society ; both (as we are told)
now on the decline, if not almost extinct.
I do not exactly know how it happens, but cer-
40 INFLUENCE OF ENGLISH SOCIETY.
tainly, notwithstanding their many sterling and
excellent qualities, our countrymen do not always
improve the spot on which, in their foreign migra-
tions, they happen to settle. Inns, it is true, are
bettered ; lodging-houses become suddenly neat,
carpeted, and comfortable ; shops brighten up ;
the pastry-cook who arranges ball-suppers, or sup-
plies routs with croquignoles and orgeat, refreshes
the stale bonbons that have garnished his windows
for the last half year, and announces captain's
biscuits, muffins, and mince pies, according to the
season ; while the milliner, who calls herself Pari-
sian, exchanges her humble show of pasteboard
shapes, for a thin curtain with a mystery of flowers,
ribbons, and feathers behind it. Sundry shops
diffuse the blessings of English drugs, English
pencils, paper, water colours, pins, cutlery, &c. :
the butcher salts tongues and rounds of beef
a VAnglaise ; the baker makes English rolls ; — in
short, none are altogether faithful to native talent
and invention except the milliner, whose goods
are always announced as fresh from the capital,
and the patriot coiffeur, who still rajeunits a
Cmatar de Paris.
SOCIETY. 41
This shop-window influence denotes the circula-
tion of the golden good (or it may be, evil) by the
British residents ; and a few individuals are, no
doubt, permanently benefited. But cupidity is
sharpened, or excited, and of course the spirit
of extortion called into play, to the advantage,
probity apart, of one in ten, and the injury of
the other nine. The native inhabitants let their
houses, and retire into cheaper quarters; should
any remain, the new comers take care to make
society too expensive for them — indeed very often
for themselves also ; and so one half are obliged
to sit below the salt, or to exhaust their resources
in endeavours to obtain a post above it; while
those who, from assurance or some lucky casualty,
keep the head of the table, are often the very per-
sons, morally speaking, who ought to stand at
the buffet.
So say many who have tried Tours as a resi-
dence ; perhaps this say may be the slander of the
mortified, for others aver that when Tours was
an English colony, the ethics of society were
conscientiously practised there ; and that it would
have been deemed improper (if not immoral) to
42 SOCIETY.
have visited any one who had not been previously
received by Lady A , or Mrs. B , C ,
or D , who had alternately wedged them-
. selves into the high seat of patronage. Now
Tours is French again, or nearly so, to the despair
of the innkeepers, who wail after their prey like
disappointed sea-gulls.
Except in the dear home circle, and the charm-
ing community of the country-house, the French
certainly understand society better than we do.
With them it is a relaxation, with us a business ;
in one country an intercourse, in another a cere-
monial. 1 speak generally ; not of our more rare
and delightful exceptions, — charmed circles where
minds develope their riches in the atmosphere of
sympathy; but of the vying concern, consequently
the cold and ceremonious one, which we too often
make of it. High conversational people use society
as a stage, aspirants as a stepping-stool, the herd
as a matter of necessity, or a means of ostentation :
but none in any station will receive their acquaint-
ance, unless they can do so in a way perfectly in
keeping with their neighbours' means — not their
own.
SOCIETY. 43
The French are exactly the reverse of us : be
matters how they may, they are never embarrassed.
Small rooms, dark stairs, furniture out at elbows —
it is all one. Even guests without a name are
received with the same urbanity as more distin-
guished ones, if their obscurity be redeemed by
good breeding and agreeability ; but if they can
narrer, conter, or raconter, with tact and spirit,
success is certain, though unprepared by a pre-
vious reputation, which (they say) is necessary to
ensure it to those who would adventure in the
talking line in England.
44 TOURS.
CHAPTER IV.
TOURS, CONTINUED — ADVANTAGES AND DRAWBACKS — OLD
MODES AND NEW ONES — REGRETS — THE LADY OF NAN-
TUA, AND HER FAN SAINTS AND MIRACLES THE CHA-
TEAU OF PLESSIS— HUNTING AND HUNTERS — LEGENDS
A SHOW OFF THE RAPPEL — CATHEDRAL LIBRARY
AND BIBLES — THE DWELLINGS IN THE ROCKS — STRIKING
VIEW AND IMMEDIATE SCENERY — THE HAMLET IN THE
FOREST — COTTAGE AND CONSCIENCE PE ACEFULNESS.
This is Pinkney's paradise ; and I remember when
a peep into his camera lucida sent crowds to the
beautiful banks of the Loire. Some settled here,
others were disenchanted ; — still Tours possesses
such a catalogue of advantages, that it will doubt-
less be re-peopled by fresli hordes, as soon as France
has accomplished her days of purification from
emeute and cholera, and can throw out her feelers,
and entice fresh flies into her cheerful bosom. A
fine town, a noble river, a pleasant, cheap, abun-
dant country, — those who know it better than I do
ADVANTAGES AND DRAWBACKS. 45
say, a beautiful one, — with (according to report)
a primitive peasantry, and a peaceful town popula-
tion, are great and reasonable attractions; they are
all united here, and a dissentient, like myself,
feels at a loss to show cause.
Tours is just the sort of place to make a traveller
— dropping down on it unawares — clap his hands,
and cry O ! and yet, for my own particular plea-
sure, I should prefer " the hollow valley of Bag-
dad," or any other valley,
" Lonely, leafy, cool, and screen,"
where the birds find a pleasant home, and invite
others to it with their sweet song. The juste
milieu of a sociable country town, with its mo-
notonous dissipations, quarrels, etiquettes, and
scandal — its Paul Pry's and its Peggy Pry's — its
gossips 1 net-work thrown over and fastening down
mind and movement, and no good-natured mouse
to nibble them out again, would be to me positive
wretchedness. Between the individual liberty,
variety, resources, and (to hermits like myself)
delightful solitude of a capital, and the quiet,
inestimable leisure and ready power of being alone
with nature and telling her one's unworldly secrets
46 ADVANTAGES AND DRAWBACKS.
which the downright country affords, my inclina-
tions find no medium.
The gentle splendour of the Loire, — tame I
must think here, notwithstanding its breadth and
copiousness, — gives me a desire to go along with its
stream, and do justice to its higher claims. From
Orleans to Nantes is (they say) all picture; but
there is a shadow over Orleans, — it is not a bright
word in our history, 1 mean our moral history ;
one does not dwell on it, or rather on the episode
of its virgin warrior, with pleasure or with pride.
Rouen is still too near, in thought at least, and
that martyrdom for which we, alas ! and alas .'
furnished the faggots.
In the provincial towns of France that are not
commercial ones, there is usually a character of
old-fashionedness, both about the place and the
people, which, by merely standing still while other
things pass on, becomes originality. At Tours,
this character seems completely effaced ; ladies,
shops, equipages, and people, are all Parisian —
to the eye at least ; the capital at second hand,
and the exquisite gusto lost in the re-heating. One
thing, however, there is that never fails to give an
OLD MODES, 47
air of originality to the popular meetings in France,
and that is the costume of the peasants, never
quitted for the variations of fashion. Even in the
very neighbourhood of Paris, the sumpter laws
of the village are tenaciously adhered to, and the
quaint garb which time has made historical is pre-
sented to us, — not on a pack of cards, or a tapestry
arras, but fresh and living. The markets of Paris
are still as full of antique caps, blue petticoats,
scarlet jackets, and gold hearts with crosses at
the end of them, as any in Bretagne, Provence,
or Normandy. Women still steer their stubborn
cavalry through the brilliant streets, seated be-
tween their panniers of grapes, or baskets of
apples, in the short mantelet of whitish cloth, for-
tified with double capes and bound with black,
just as they may do at Aries or Quiberon. This
sort of variety exists at Tours, as in other places ;
but one looks in vain for those charming old
fashions, so full and reminiscent, that still hold
their day in many of the remote and by-way
towns, which those who love records find so attrac-
tive ; and those who do not, so flat.
I shall never forget the heavy glass-panelled
48 AND NEW ONES.
eight-inside coach, drawn by oxen and filled with
gay ladies, that in one of our former peregrina-
tions came down like a three-decker on our frail
modern machine, at the issue of a cross-country
road in the Bourbonnais. It was Dona Mercia's
berline, in the old illustrations of Gil Bias, point
for point; and as it lumbered along, sticking con-
scientiously to the regular ruts, brought all the
intrigues of Madrid and Seville, from the Eu-
ropean politics of the count duke to the home
ones of the Scipios and Fabricios, back to the
memory.
The mind will always, when a scene is new to its
observation, hunt through it for other novelty, and
l-epine when it does not find it there. In England,
the capital is every where; stage-coaches, and
mail-coaches, and steam-coaches, have levelled all
things. The slow waggon, whose toiling progress
made a journey to London from a distant province
seem something akin in difficulty to an East-India
voyage, is as completely gone by as Love in a
Village, or the Jolly Miller; and the Dolly
Madge (now Dora or Margaret) of the hamlet,
fired with the desire of seeing life, springs up on
REGRETS. 49
the top of the coach in a regular Oxford-street
toilette, with a gay good-by to home, and a nod
of recognition to the coachman. If a cottage is to
be let in a remote village, the advertisement is
always tailed with a notice that "coaches pass
twice a-day ;" if in a popular one, "every hour;"
and with this rapid circulation of mind, its powers,
inventions, and improvements, goes that of cus-
toms, manners, and morals, — the last not always
the least susceptible of fashionable influence.
And alas ! for the wassail-bowl of buttered ale,
or warm lamb's-wool ! It is made over to the farm
house : the glistening ivy and red holly berry fol-
low its lead; the misletoe hangs only from smoky
rafters — at least I fear so; and the pie, the Christ-
mas pie, where is it gone to ? Does it still deco-
rate the sideboard of the old-fashioned mansion ?
Is there still an old-fashioned mansion proud of its
castle of pie-crust, within whose massive walls the
huge goose, boneless and curiously seasoned, en-
closes the finest turkey of the soil ; who, itself inlaid
with ham and spices, makes room within its hos-
pitable bosom for a hare, and perhaps a brace of
pheasants, all disencumbered of their superfluities,
VOL. I. D
50 REGRETS.
and in their turn affording shelter to the smaller
winged things, who, buried in mushrooms and other
dainty stimulants, fill up the hollows: while the im-
mense mass, steadied — or, as the cooks say, settled,
in a sea of savoury jelly, yields its rich slices, — in
which all good things from the goose down through
and through to the little birds, are marbled into a
tempting mosaic, — to the old-fashioned appetite
of the morning sportsman, or the supper-loving
crony ?
What a pity that such hearty home-customs
should be sent down, like stale bread, to the kitch-
en ! When I lived in the country, I did my best
for them ; and now that, like Jacob, " I dwell in
the land wherein my father was a stranger," I still
insist on as many pudding, pancake, and cross-bun
observances as possible.
But Paris influences do not extend so far as Lon-
don ones, and in getting out of that capital, one
expects to get away from them ; for there are still
corners and customs left in France to delight the
eye, I may almost say the heart, — old usages and
tomb-stone figures, that comment history and have
a raciness about them that makes modern ones seem
THE LADY OF NANTUA. 51
often spiritless. A grisette in an opposite shop,
who arranges her hair every two minutes in a
pocket looking-glass, pleases me less (though really
pretty) than an old lady of Nantua, who once
made our point of view in the same way ; to wit,
from the inn window. Talking of old things
brings her before me, as she sat at the door of
her dwelling on a gentle summer's evening, in the
wired fly-cap and dimity negligee of other times ;
her blooming maid standing behind her chair, the
quaint cap of the country framing in her youthful
features, and in her hand the ample fan, — perhaps
embellished on one side with the bower-scene of
Chantilly, or the Versailles figure of a courtly
Clelia, sideling her hoop along a bank of roses; or
it might be with the energetic effigy of Madame
Malbrouk, waving her handkerchief from the top
of her tower, while a scroll held up by Cupids over
her matronly head developes the first line of the
ballad, the Malbrouk, s'en va-t-en guerre, sung
by a queen,* (poor queen !) who heard it hummed
over the cradle of her child, and fancying it, made
its melody European. The back of the fan (only
* Marie Antoinette.
d2
52 SAINTS AND MIRACLES.
meant to meet the eye of the proprietor) had, I
know just as well as if I had seen it, two full-
blown roses carelessly shaded on it; stalks crossed,
leaves corresponding, and two doves cooing on a
spray in the middle. Mistress, maid, fan, fly-
cap, and negligee, made altogether a group from
Moliere, — fresh too, and vivid ; and with a cer-
tain courtly air about it, which old modes are apt
to retain if originally of a substantial cut and
quality. But in the fleeting fashions of the mo-
ment there is rarely any picture ; whatever a
fashion may pass into when time has fixed its
identity, its immediate associations must always
have more of millinery than poetry about them.
In holier times, Tours was a city of saints, — few
were richer in pious men, or legends ; among many,
St. Martin, and St. Gregory were perhaps the most
remarkable. St. Martin, son to the beautiful Helen
of Constantinople, and the bold Florus, king of
Hungary, belongs as much to the story-book as
to ecclesiastical history: like St. Ignatius de Loyola
and others of the calendar, he began life with
the sword; but having bestowed the half of his
cloak on a beggar, who afterwards revealed to him
CHATEAU OF PLESSIS. 5%
that he was Jesus Christ himself, laid it clown and
took up the cross. Gregory of Tours, that learned
chronicler and edifying prelate, modestly attri-
buted the miracles that he himself performed, to
the marvellous virtues belonging to a small por-
tion of the dust of his canonized predecessor,
which he carried about him ; and so highly
venerated was his tomb, that when Pepin the
father of Charlemagne was dying, he caused
himself to be brought to it. Clovis, too, heaped
it with precious gifts, and condemned a soldier
to death for having cut some of the grass that
grew within its neighbourhood. It was the famous
abbey of Marmoustier, founded by the same St.
Martin, that possessed the chapel of the seven
sleepers. The legend says, that seven nephews of
the saint having been called in a vision by their
alreadv beatified uncle, fell asleep (in the language
of Scripture) at the same moment, and were buried
within its enclosure. Of Marmoustiers, little now
remains ; of Plessis les Tours, a tower, with an
old house attached to it, scraped and whitewashed,
and the newly furbished up walls trying to make
the long roof look modern. It is a manufactory
54 HUNTING AND HUNTERS.
now of something, — I think they said shot. We
stopped at the gate, perhaps the same at which
Louis de Tremouille at the head of four hundred
gentlemen knocked boldly, demanding and obtain-
ing from the gripe of Louis XI. the estates of
which he had been unlawfully deprived. One is
obliged to call up recollections here, for there is
nothing thought-stirring or testifying in the place
itself. The small iron wicket exists no longer, and
the cages and oubliettes have vanished with their
uses ; which vanishing has (notwithstanding what
I have just now said) both a thought and a bless-
ing in it.
Fine forest-hunting (as we are told) at Tours ;
wolf and boar, and the fox-chase in perfection,
flourishing under English patronage, some one said
who meditated a compliment. This was always a fa-
mous hunting-country. Louis the Twelfth hunted
here with leopards; his tremendous predecessor with
rats ; or rather, when he could no longer take the
field himself, indulged in private rat-hunts in his
own royal chateau of Plessis ; — a sweet pastime, and
withal, kingly ! Ladies have doubtless hunted here
in coaches ; princes by torch-light : there is no end
A SHOW OFF. 55
to forest traditions in France, and tales of hunters
from Clovis to Charles Dix. Legends are delicious
helps to scenery, and to the mind also ; for if they
are not true to the letter, they are to the spirit,
manners, passions, and scale of knowledge of the
times to which they belong. The traditionary
fables of a past age, are perhaps as faithful a record
of the people who believed in them, as history is of
its events.
A sweet evening tempted us to the window.
Beneath it, the conductor of a diligence bundles in
his customers, among whom is one very conspicuous
package, — an adventurous fair, apparently under
her own protection ; and who, mounting up lightly,
throws herself into the cabriolet, entrusting the
care of an old blue mantle, edged with rabbit skin,
to a fellow-passenger ; while she adjusts the mar-
motte that confines her blowzy night-cap, with a
hand meant to be the destruction of the simple-
looking man who places himself beside her. Then
there is a rapid huddling on of various draperies,
and a look up at us with a pair of southern eyes,
and a showy laugh — probably at her own thoughts,
for no one seems to address her, — that displays a
56
THE RAPPEL.
set of large white teeth back to the very wise ones.
I never saw an}' creature so full of itself, or so satis-
fied that all is as it should be for producing effect.
Perceiving that we observe her, she turns round,
and gives us a killing full-front shot, fluttering
her marmotte with a kind of half-gay, half-wicked
Fornarina air inexpressibly diverting, and then dis-
appears — meteor like, perhaps to blaze out again
" ere the owl hoots, 11 as the Phcedre or Iphig^nie
of some village treteau.
Went to bed lateish, and was hardly asleep when
some troops, on their way to Nantes to frighten the
Chouans, disembarked for refreshment ; and with
such battle-shouts and drumming, that, suddenly
awaking, I thought July was come again. The
loud rappel — so long the Paris angelus, and too
familiar to be mistaken, rattled as if La Vendee
was at the gates. I started from my bed, think-
ing that the town was up ; or, at least, that Sir
Hugon of Tours was galloping about in armour,
(as is his custom on summer's nights) ; or that the
Grand Veneur, — the black spectre of the forest of
Fontainbleau, — had crossed the country with his
phantom hounds and horns ; and, opening the win-
THE CATHEDRAL. 57
dow, looked out : and there was Night, with such
a star on her forehead ! but nothing: else : no
tramp of feet; no sudden opening of casements; no
buzzing groupes forming simultaneously, — inva-
riable precursors of tumult in the capital ; all quiet
but the drums. So 1 returned to my bed, and
while I lay there conjecturing, came Sleep, and put
a finger on each eyelid ; and when I awoke, the
hotel was still in its place, the grisette at her shop
door, and the privileged inn-beggars looking up at
the windows.
The cathedral of Tours must be interesting, for
such things always are so, more or less. Saint
Gratien, Saint Lidoire, and Saint Gregory,* had
(I believe) each a hand in it ; but I, alas ! have
put neither hand or foot. A journey and a sprain,
or something in the way of one, are with me of late
almost synonymous. As soon as I begin the first,
some ill-conditioned pixie usually compliments me
with the second ; and though I love old cathedrals
as I do old oaks, or old usages, — that is dearly,
yet I am obliged to content myself with the spires
here, just as I tried to do at Chartres, and more-
* The patron saint of Tours.
D 3
58 LIBRARY AND BIBLES.
over to forego the sight of the museum, which is
said to contain some clever pictures, and of the
library with its curious specimens of early print-
ing and precious manuscripts ; among which is
the most beautiful of the family of illuminated
bibles, the famous one of Mayence, interesting
from its age and unsullied brightness ; and another
especially historical, on whose white vellum and
gilt-lettered page the kings of France were used
to take the customary oaths, as abbots and canons
of the church of Saint Martin. These manuscripts
are exquisite toys, triumphs of ultramarine, shell
gold, and magical fingers ; but when one is seri-
ously told that a whole life has been spent on a
single volume — perhaps not even sufficed for its
completion, we feel disposed to ask if such rare in-
genuity was given for such puny purposes. In
the cathedral is a monument of two children of
Charles the Eighth, reputed beautiful ; and which
was removed from the church of Saint Martin at
the destruction of the edifice, of which nothing now
remains but the tower of Charlemagne.
I have seen too little of this garden of France,
this fair and fertile Touraine, to judge of its actual
DWELLINGS IN THE ROCKS. 59
beauty; but that little has rather disappointed me.
Fair it is, and fertile ; but not of that exceeding
fairness which endues fertility with loveliness,
making- the latent good appear, even to the unphi-
losophic eye, the present beauty. While saying
this, I feel how (literally) audacious it would be to
set up an opinion formed on road-side views, which
may, and I should think do, preface it unfavour-
ably ; just as if one were to decide on national
character, or the state of society and morals in a
foreign land, by the information collated during a
stay of three or four days at an hotel, even with the
help of an ambassador's ball, or a banker's dinner.
What we have seen appears pleasant, rather
than remarkable ; soft cottage scenery, that if it
were spring time and the fruit-trees out, would be
one sheet of blossoms ; neat hedges enclosing neat
gardens, — the whole country indeed a garden ; and
the rustic dwellings simple, rural, and just what
they ought to be. The most characteristic dwel-
lings here are not, however, the most rural ; they
are hollows in the rocks, where families nestle who
do not love landlords or taxes, and who find com-
modious habitations in these natural caverns. A
60 DWELLINGS IN THE ROCKS.
long and rocky ridge leads off to the right on
crossing the bridge from the town ; a smoother
line of hill, decked with country-houses, and made
in one spot beautiful by a soft woody promontory
and fine-drawn spire, follows the line of the river
to the left ; the ruder ridge has villas at its base,
and gardens that spread out till they reach the
road that lies between them and the river. At
first, the eye sees nothing in this ridge but a run
of rock ; but, as it looks upwards and against it,
something that seems like a low and rude monu-
mental pillar becomes visible amongst the vine-
stalks, or the patch of grass or grain that spreads
its thin layer over its rugged surface. Another
appears, perhaps close to it ; a third, not far dis-
tant ; and while we are wondering what they can
be, and conjecturing antiquities, a thin blueish
smoke rises up through the tube of old brick, or
old stone-work, and discloses the secret of human
habitation under the earth. On a closer inspec-
tion, a small window — perhaps two, or a larger
aperture which, with the help of a ladder — or with-
out it, as the ground happens to suit, becomes visi-
ble in the face of the rock, that sometimes rises up
STRIKING VIEW, 61
perpendicularly to its highest point, and at others
breaks down into a rough terrace or abrupt de-
clivity just above the subterraneous dwelling, of
whose roof long grass, gay weeds, or a few strag-
gling vines, make a wild garden. These ready-
made habitations are abundant in the rocks of
Touraine, and rarely (it is said) are without inha-
bitants : they are commodious and, strange to say,
healthy.
I have spoken of the southern line of hills on
the other side of the river, and must not forget
the charming view which it overlooks, and the
marvellous light in which we saw it. The city
and its old cathedral darkening under a mass of
heavy summer clouds, which obscured the sun
itself, but not the beams that rayed out broadly
from beneath it, and sparkled on the wide river
and its pale leafy islands; all but the town was
bright, — the distant hills, the near fields ; but the
city sat heavily on its plains, and looked, in the
stilly darkness that hung upon it, as if there was
not a living soul within its walls. It is from a
point close to a huge, staring chateau, — the most
conspicuous thing on the hill, but whose name has
62 AND IMMEDIATE SCENERY.
escaped me, that this view is best seen. As we
quitted the town by the Poitiers road, the country
seemed less interesting; dead flat near the town,
and wet, — excellent for rice-grounds ; and at a
gentle distance, wooded hills with agreeable look-
ing country-houses scattered over them. Vertum-
nus and Pomona may, perhaps, pass the summer
there, and hang out their pretty garden pictures
under the fresh shade of their bowers ; but for the
traveller, who drives in at one end of the town and
out at the other, the immediate environs of Tours,
though very agreeable, do not appear to bear out
their reputation. Notwithstanding which, the by-
paths in the woods (rude ones, into which my eyes
would fain at this moment travel) may lead to
scenes of unconjectured sweetness. The hamlet may
be there, niched among the hanging boughs like
a bird's-nest, with its ivied church and its swift
shallow brook fringed, like old Davors river- walk,
with a quaint catalogue of garden sweets, — daisies
and violets,
" Red hyacinths and yellow daffodil,
Purple narcissus like the morning rays,
Pale gander-grass, and yellow culver keys,"
THE HAMLET IN THK FOREST. 03
and wilder things in the lone forest depths amongst
the miracles: for every forest in France has its
charmed well, its miraculous stone; or its tree,
under which a king has sat and seen visions, or a
bewildered hunter encountered a weird hasr who
has misled, or a benevolent spirit who has guided
him through its woody mazes.
We do not always know what the forest hides
when we look upon it. I remember once, — it was
in Worcestershire, passing a narrow forest path
that zig-zagged pleasantly up a hill, and was soon
lost among the trees, and proposing to my com-
panion to follow its windings. I had often re-
marked its ochre line as a cheerful point in the
rustic landscape ; but fancied it merely a track
which the wood-cutters had beaten out through
the briars. It soon carried us off' from the road,
and through many a brake and hollow, until at
last, and just as we began to think of turning back,
it suddenly emerged from the thicket into a hamlet
of six or eight cottages ; not placed, country-dance
fashion, opposite to each other, but scattered round
a green spot covered with short-nibbled grass, and
almost as circular as a fairy ring ; one turning its
64 COTTAGE AND
gable to the sun, another running away from it
into the apple-trees ; here a hawthorn bush, there
a broad stumpy elder, flowering over the garden
wicket. A cow gazed at herself in a still pool,
and a little boy lay on his back beside her, looking
up at the sky ; the ground rose gently all round
the hamlet, and the trees which grew on it covered
the roofs with their shade.
I never saw a sweeter apparition, — and it really
looked like one ; for, except the little boy, there
was not a human being visible, — or audible either;
plenty of cock-crowing, and some flurried gabbling
from a dozen or so of ducks, who had tucked their
legs under them, and were warming themselves on
a sunny spot, which they had made puddle of by
the pool's side ; but otherwise a still and sultry si-
lence, — the silence of a summer noon, when the air
seems heavy with sweetness. If I had been sud-
denly asked for a name for this secluded spot, I
should have said Rest ; the inhabitants were all
out cutting wood, or gathering sticks, or working
in the distant fields, children and all ; and the ba-
bies too, — nobody left behind but the little boy
and an old woman, whom we discovered spinning
CONSCIENCE PEACEFULNESS. 65
in the midst of her bee-hives. She had been pre-
paring her grandson's supper, she told us; and
that being done, had sat down to her wheel to spin
till his return. I never saw a more perfect picture
of comeliness and cottage comfort, and of wonder,
too, at seeing us in her rosemary and gillyflower
garden ; for no one ever rambled that way, (she
said,) except now and then an autumn sportsman.
There were no candles burned in the hamlet ;
when evening darkened, she put by her work, said
her prayers, and then went to bed by the last ray
of daylight, — in winter at four o'clock, or earlier.
What a beautiful conscience the kind old soul
must have had !
When we turned away from this pretty, unex-
pected scene, and had descended twenty paces
through the wood, we lost sight of it entirely ; and
could hardly believe that the close trees, whose
branches seemed knit together, hid so many homes
in their bosom.
And so, having stepped over from Touraine into
Worcestershire, and, as I find on looking about
me, stepped back again, I shall pull off my seven-
league boots, and repose a little.
66 MONTBAZON.
CHAPTER V.
MONTBAZON — COUNTRY TO ORMES — MODERN CHATEAUX
AND OLD ONES — TRAVELLERS' MISERIES THE PLAGUE
OF CUTLERY UNEXPECTED DELICACY CHATELLE-
RAULT — EVENING— THE BLACKSMITH'S SHOP — STREET
MOVEMENT — CASTLES OF POITOU — COTTAGES ABROAD
AND AT HOME — THE BLACK PRINCE, AND THE PRINCE
OF DENMARK POITIERS ITS CHURCHES AND ITS
BATTLE-PIECE FEODALISM IN ITS BEAUTY RUFFEC
— POLITICS AND THE PREFET — WAR AND ITS ATTRAC-
TIONS.
Montbazon is prettily placed, with the ruins of a
castle, — a Julius Caesar, as they say, and a good
sketch-book thing, — looking down on it. Stopped
to change horses before the door of a garden-house,
when the wicket opened suddenly, as the cavern
did to the "sesame" of the Forty Thieves, and two
tier of anxious faces appeared filling up the aper-
ture. Below were three little French girls, tan-
ned and crabbed, with swarthy locks and keen,
COUNTRY TO ORMES. 67
questioning eyes; and, rising above their shoulders,
three others of larger growth, who we fancied were
English ; one gem-like and striking, the others
white and doughy. There was something very
innocent in the assurance with which they stared
at us: a young lady brought up at a fashionable
establishment would not have done such a thing
for the world. But simplicity looks sometimes very
like impudence, and precisely because it has not the
internal sentiment.
We have now a cheerful and fertile country,
delicately carpeted with the tender verdure of the
young corn ; in the midst of which fine trees, single
or grouped, (oaks chiefly,) grow up and give the
fields a dressed and park-like air. To cheerful
and fertile may, however, be added tame, and as
yet monotonous ; a little variety makes itself felt
as if it was something wonderful : and to-day,
when we dropped into an oak dell with a soft
sylvan look about it, I thought it almost romance,
and could have fancied myself for an instant in one
of those Surrey glens that run away from the
high roads, and seem all the more lovely for their
coyness.
C8 MODERN CHATEAUX,
I never saw such a bringing together of ash
trees, as since we left Tours. The ash is not a
generally diffused tree, like the oak or the elm, but
here it is a feature in the landscape ; so is the wal-
nut, which at a distance loses its graceful shape,
and looks round and formal ; and the cold poplar,
dear to Flemish painters, who know how to make
its compact and spiral form tell as an element of
calmness. Some idle women came roUnd our car-
riage at Ormes, measuring us inquisitively, with a
loitering yet anxious air, as if they would have
given an eye or a tooth each to have known some-
thing more about us. The French are curious, —
laughably so sometimes, but not ill naturedly.
Near to Ormes is a chateau of the Marquis
d'Argenson, reputed one of the finest in France.
We did not see it ; one feels less disposed to go
out of the straight road to see a modern chateau,
than abdicated or ruined ones : these belong to
the romance of history. Of such, as well as of
the proud strong-holds, counting centuries yet still
equal to the purposes of defence, France has a
large proportion, as of the feudal and chivalric
records which give them interest. When I see
AND OLD ONES. 69
these old towers, my fancy makes a story for them
—sotto voce; and then I find another in my
memory which displaces it, sometimes pleasantly,
at others with unwelcome roughness. But still I
say, blessings on those whose true taste preserves
old things in their old forms ! who leave old recol-
lections in their old niches, and who do not think
it necessary to repair, and paint, and decorate,
until the very ghosts no longer know their favourite
haunts ; and, missing the antique and sullen co-
louring of time, and the congenial loneliness never
before broken in upon by the noise of masonry,
stalk off indignantly, taking with them the power
which belongs to supernatural associations, — the
awe of their possible, or, at least, willingly-ima-
gined presence. For who, in wandering through
the old domains of history and romance, would
wish to dismiss the thought of their being still
tenanted by the unseen spirits of those whose
names and deeds lie holily upon them ? Who
would accept the change of modern finerv for the
gorgeous dream of imagination, or the necromancy
of memory ? None, certainly, of meditative mind,
into whose deep thought the dead enter ; none of
70 TRAVELLERS 1 MISERIES.
genuine fancy or poetic feeling ; for to such those
old memorials, twice consecrated — once by time,
and once by story, — seem too sacred to be handed
over to the profaning touch of beautifiers and
repairers.
No more blue and silver jackets to-day, but
post-boys fresh from the plough, who push their
cattle over the smooth roads as if they were winged ;
if they were, it would be flying, and now it is
only next door to it ; but I scarcely ever saw such
speed. Met some quiet farmer-looking men, jogging
along with pistols in their holsters, probably fan-
cying every bush a Chouan. Hay-making again,
and grass of the true Twickenham green, — nothing
parched but the women : now and then a white
sail glimmering through the trees tells us that a
river is near, though not in view, — the Vienne, I
believe, which we have already crossed at Ormes.
Travellers 1 miseries are, in general, bad inns,
bad roads, bad horses, and bad weather ; but the
misery here is the cutlery trade. Every idle girl,
or bold one, who prefers spending her time at the
inn-door, or on the high way, to working diligently
at home, runs out with a handful of penknives as
THE PLAGUE OF CUTLERY. *J1
blunt as Peter Pindar's razors, or half-a-dozen
pair of rigid scissors, to persecute the unfortunate
stranger, whose ill-luck may have thrown him in
her way. If you stand on a balcony, she will fly
up stairs to you ; if you get into a carriage, she
will fasten on the step, — perhaps jump in, or force
you to carte and tierce with her through the win-
dow, till in despair you buy off" her perseverance,
for wear it out you cannot.
At Tours, an humble knock at the door an-
nounced, I thought, a conscious intruder. " Cest
la petite marchande de rhotel,' 1 said the waiter.
I tried to escape, but could not ; and la petite
marchande pushed in with her awful case of cut-
lery. I expected, from the introductory formule,
some tripping thing of sixteen, easily got rid of;
when a staid, middle-aged body presented herself,
but the tongue was still in its teens, running as if
on its first wheels, and alas ! no chance of a break
down. " Madame must certainly want a pair of
scissors, probably a large one ; or a very small, or
a pocket size : perhaps a knife — a penknife, ivory,
tortoiseshell, or mother-of-pearl ; or a jardiniere,
Avith three blades, a file, and a corkscrew.'" L
72 THE PLAGUE OF CUTLERY.
produced an English one; and la petite morchande,
turning away sorrowfully, acknowledged with a
sigh that English cutlery was the best in the
world, — she did not know why ; perhaps it was the
water; and then she sighed again. I purchased a
pair of scissors, which, for the capability of cutting,
might as well have been a pair of snuffers ; and so
got rid of her, but not of the cutlery plague in
general. At Ormes a woman attacked us, saying,
with incomparable effrontery, that she had come
from an immense distance for the purpose of offer-
ing us her merchandise. We said that we were
already provided, but she would take no excuse ;
and two unoccupied post-boys, who were looking
on, gave it as their unbiassed opinion that it was a
traveller's duty to buy every where, if it were
only to stir trade.
But it was at Chatellerault that the plague was
at its height. As we approached the inn, a dozen
women sprang upon us like tigers,
" Fire in each eye, and scissors in each hand ;"
and seizing the moment when we stopped before it,
mounted upon chairs, (with which they were all
previously provided,) and thrust the instruments of
UNEXPECTED DELICACY *]3
martyrdom into the carriage, with fierce and threat-
ening gestures that belied their petitioning words ;
while a chorus of voices screamed out " Knives,
razors, corkscrews! — a superb pair of scissors for
two francs, a magnificent leverette for fifty sous !"
Then the scissors at twenty — fifteen — twelve, and
the " jolie leverette" tumbling down through the
decimals to eight. " Take it for eight," bawled
the vendor in a tone of angry despair, " ma jolie
leverette I 11 — it was enough to drive one mad.
Amongst those turbulent matrons — for such
they seemed to be, was an elderly woman whose
quiet, uncomplaining look interested me : so when
we were housed, I beckoned to her from the window ;
and having talked with her a little, and found her
to be (as I had expected) a decent and very neces-
sitous person, put a trifle into her box, for which
she appeared extremely grateful. But with a
delicacy rare in such cases, would have insisted
on my selecting something from her store in return ;
nor could I disengage myself from her entreaties
till I had accepted a small penknife.
It was a pretty trait, and showed a character
which neither distress, nor evil contact, could
VOL. I. E
74 CHATKLLERAULT.
sharpen into rapaciousness ; and which, in a sphere
more favourable to its developement, might have
expanded into something noble. How many beau-
tiful natures have been crushed by poverty and
care, which culture and kindness might have nou-
rished into strength and beauty ! This thought
brought others, and I condemned myself for having
judged the poor scissor-vendors too harshly, with-
out reflecting how severely protracted distress tries,
and how often it finally warps, the best instructed
and most improved minds.
But an old woman who hobbled up stairs, when
we ordered tea, with a skillet in which were de-
posited five or six spoonsful of hot sour milk, was
not so charitably disposed towards them ; they
were Jlaneurs, she said, who ought to be sent to
the house of correction. I thought the word fla-
neur (literally lounger) singularly applied to these
poor souls; it put me in mind of an Irish beggar-
woman, whom I once heard asking alms at a shop-
door for " a poor dissolute cripple,"" meaning a
deformed babv that she held in her arms. In the
it
last case, the i. e. was obviously desolate; but the
flaneur was only " vocal to the intelligent."
EVENING. 7^
We find the Vienne again at Chatellerault, flow-
ing under a handsome stone bridge, and making an
agreeable picture. Its smooth surface is covered
with country craft. Long boats, of a graceful form
with square sails, spread out their whiteness in the
evening sun, catching the lights which, intercepted
by higher objects no longer, sparkle on the cur-
rent ; while a water-cart, with its patient horse up
to the shoulders in the river, and three grey post-
ers knee-deep in a shallower part, lashing at the
flies with their long tails, help out a quiet evening-
scene, transparently coloured ; to which the white
houses on the oppsoite quay, with their light gird-
ling of vine- leaves, give an agreeable finish.
But the people here are the best part of the pic-
ture. Before a blacksmith's shop, that happens to
be in front of our windows, a group is at this mo-
ment formed, which would give pleasant work to a
quick-sketching pencil. Two rough horses, with
high-padded saddles, compose its centre ; one is
held by a woman in the wide-lappeted cap of the
country, her smoothly-divided black hair appear-
ing under it, and a bright mixture of blue and
scarlet forming the prominent hues of her dress.
e 2
76 THE BLACKSMITH^ SHOP.
A man, who had just dismounted from the other
beast, — wild, olive-coloured, and picturesque as a
Spanish muleteer, leans against a post ; and while
the blacksmith's operation is going on, gives a pass-
ing word to a venerable elder mounted on a fine
mule, and inserted between two well-stuffed bales
that swell up before and behind him. His beaver
is aristocratically large, his coat pale fawn-colour,
waistcoat light blue, and stockings a pure country
white. While they talk, the horse is shod ; and
the woman, springing up like the false Teresa
Panza on her steed, throws one leg over the saddle,
and fixing herself firmly in the seat, unfolds a large
cloth petticoat, split up behind and before, ties it
on, and letting it fall over each side, presents the
most decent appearance possible.
Charming old carriages ; an inappreciable demi-
fortune,* as large as a town coach and a half, just
passes, drawn by a superb mule ; and in it a fair
creature reading in the midst of five or six others,
with a full-blown rose — a natural one — in her hair.
Carts, all drawn by oxen ; no horses, were they as
• A litfht landau, chariot, or other family vehicle, drawn
by one horse.
STREET MOVEMENT. 77
plump and mottled as the best ever turned out by
Rubens, could become a country cart as oxen do.
Horses — fine ones especially, seem misapplied when
used for the slow purposes of agriculture: oxen
are the cattle of the field, as horses are of the
desert, though we have tamed them down to the
staid and the harness. Every moment some merry
lassie, or grave dame, jogs, by on her mule, the
split petticoat thrown scrupulously over her mus-
cular proportions, and a freight of brooms or other
household articles strapped behind ; for this being
market-day, all are purchasers. Two girls on one
horse, both very smart and one pretty, with a lap-
peted matron brown and fierce as a Cherokee
chief in the van, trot down the street at this mo-
ment ; the girls chattering like two plotting mag-
pies, and the matron every now and then turning
round her copper-coloured visage to see that all is
right, and the green cloth petticoat duly arranged.
To-day, oak-woods and oak-copses, and the
park-like air which we sometimes remarked yester-
day, and which the fashion of planting single trees
in the midst of vast unenclosed fields often gives to
this country, continued ; hamlets in woody spots.
78 COTTAGES ABROAD
and chateaux scattered about, and flanked with
turrets like an old-fashioned cruet-stand. The
high nobility of Poitou are faithful Carlists, and
live feudally within their unmodernised domains,
in the fond indulgence of hope, or the fruitless one
of regret. Neighbour to the Boccage, in position
as in sentiment, the lord is still chief; and the vas-
sal faithful and devoted, happy in the protection
which he feels ready to repay with life, and proud
of his fealty as others of their independence.
I love a cottage, or a farm-house, in the midst
of fields, with the corn at the door, and the apple-
trees beside it. We saw many such in Touraine ;
but, generally speaking, single habitations are not
much to the taste of the French peasant, who is
gregarious, and prefers the stony and stringy vil-
lage, where the social virtues can be duly exer-
cised ; where there are talkers, and listeners, and
winter-evening gatherings at one neighbour's or
another, till each has provided room, light, and
fuel, in his turn. The lonely cottage, (whose sim-
ple inhabitants little dream of the romantic fancies
awakened by the sight of their rude dwelling,) or
the cheerful one, flower-hung and sunny, with the
AND AT HOME. 79
morning dew sparkling on its thatch, are not the
common country dwellings of France, though the
last are oftener met with in the part we have
recently passed through, than in any other that I
can at this moment call to mind. I have talked of
cottages, but even the best here are seldom like our
home ones, with the garden-fence of hawthorn, and
the small garden itself dressed out in stocks and
sweet-williams, and the bower of woodbine all
clammy with honey-dew, and set round with sober
scabious, and that pretty blue flower which may,
perhaps, have a gentler name than devil -in-the-
bush — the one I used to know it by in my child-
hood; and the black currant and full-blossomed
syringa, whose leaf tastes, as the gammers say, like
cucumber.
Yet this is pleasant scenery, — or seems so to us,
who, having looked long at pavement and town
trees, and put up with the lilacs and laburnums of a
Champs Elysees garden, find a charm in the aspect
of the country which, like the sense of being to a
free and healthfully organized mind, is in itself
enjoyment. Besides, where there are no recollec-
tions of a higher kind, the eye contents itself with
80 THE BLACK PRINCE, AND
little, and cheerful mediocrity spreads out its means
effectually.
This historical Poitiers (which has no higher re-
putation now for beauty than in the time of Madame
de Motteville, and a very poor one too for clean-
liness) is charmingly approached, At one side
rocks and woods, with cottages hung about in
them, and a wild luxuriance of parasitical vegeta-
tion over-running the stony masses; at the other,
the Clain gliding through tufted banks and flowery
meadows. Thought of the old wars of France and
England, and, as matter of course, of the Black
Prince, whose wild and gloomy appellation suited
the character of the times, and its savage though
romantic spirit. I have never been able to make
out what there is in this same name, that always
makes my fancy bestow the attribute of youth upon
its possessor. History talks of forty and some odd
years ; but I can never push the dark-armoured
hero beyond the romantic point of eight or nine
and twenty. The sound of the Black Prince never
will come to my ear with a grey hair in it. It is
the same with Hamlet ; but this is a more general
feeling, for who ever believed, even on his own
THE FIUNCE Ol- - DENMARK. 81
authority — or acquiescence, for he never contra-
dicts the grave-digger, — that he had calendared
thirty years ; or on his mother's, that he was " fat
and scant of breath ;" or ever fancied him other
than a youth recent from Wittenberg, — thought-
ful, philosophizing, sometimes sad, but still the
young prince, and almost student : which illusion
must be owing to something in his name ; for,
though it is true that his uncle talks of school, yet
so does he himself of three and twenty years ago
as of a fresh recollection : so one may be allowed
to balance the other, even without the mature
additions of fat and shortwindedness.
Saw little or nothing of Poitiers, — little even of
its general appearance, and nothing of its Roman
relics, its amphitheatre, or other fragments ; nothing
of its vast cathedral, its ancient churches — Ste. Ra-
degonde, St. Hilaire, and St. John ; all (as it is
said) exceedingly curious ; as being amongst the
earliest specimens of sacred architecture; but the
church of Notre Dame la Grande is deemed the
most remarkable. These old churches, in the early
gotico Lombardo style, or in that which came before
it, — simple and even sometimes rude within, but
e 3
82 POITIERS.
overcharged externally with statues, bassi relievi,
rich tracery, elaborate fret- work, scrolls, foliage,
rosettes, columns twisted, fluted, knotted, growing
out of the backs of beasts such as Ezekiel dreamed
of, are often fuller of interest than the more elegant
structures of later times. However, the day being
hopelessly wet, and our way merely skirting the
town, we have left its sights for a future occasion ;*
but it seemed well perched, and to one who, like
myself, is a lover of battered old towns and high-
spirited recollections, curious and interesting.
About five or six leagues from Poitiers, and on
the river Vonne, is the little town of Lusignan,
famous once for its castle known in history, and to
which the fairy Melusina, — a most remarkable per-
son, at once serpent and woman, daughter, as she
is called by some, of the twelve tribes of Israel; or
of the king of Cyprus and Jerusalem, as she is
styled by others, but always princess and magi-
cian, — has given a romantic celebrity ; and two
* And another has since presented itself; when its ec-
clesiastical treasures were pointed out to us by the kind-
ness of the preset, to whose politeness and intelligence we
were much indebted.
POITIERS. 83
leagues from the town are the plains of Mauper-
tuis (no longer however known by that name,)
where the great battle of Poitiers was foughi, and
the king of France made prisoner. There rang
the cry of Montjoie — St. Denis ! answered by that
of St. George — Guyenne ! and there did the Black
Prince speak so wisely and plausibly to his some-
what disheartened army, (then preparing for the
battle,) that they were reconfortes. There fell the
Oriflamme, and a great spirit with it;* and many
thousand valiant men found passage for their souls
that day !
The ultra-carlist character of the country, and
its vicinity to La Vendee, sharpen the vigilance
of the police most provokingly. Such a passport
scrutiny as we have to go through at every ham-
let ! just as if we were the old Bourbons them-
seves, — we who are as innocent of Charles Dix as
we are of Pharamond. Remarked at Couhe some
very pretty girls, with oval faces and sparkling
eyes ; women much better looking than in the
Paris direction : no more bulbous noses, but a fine
drawn gentility of features, and a soft and very
* Geoffrey de Charuey.
84 FfcODALISM
agreeable southern colouring. A rich country on-
wards, wide fields of waving grain; and the most
splendid chestnuts imaginable, vying in magnitude
and beauty with the oak, and opposing their deep
and full-bodied green to the pale transparent ver-
dure of the walnut. Surface agreeablv varied with
frequent hills, softly wooded in the distance.
Still too near to La Vendee ; big looks and
blustering every where. At Chaunay, a soldier of
the Garde Urbaine, petticoated like a Drury-lane
centurion, barred our passage with fixed bayonet,
eyeing us suspiciously, and rather as if he had pri-
vate reasons for believing us dangerous characters.
It is impossible to find oneself touching on this
country of " the West, 11 without a feeling of respect,
even though it may not be one of actual sympathy.
There was so much good faith and hearty courage
in the old Vendeans of — 93, that however opinions
may differ as to the merits of the cause, their
beautiful devotion to it, — a devotion of sacrifice
offered in perfect faith, — must ever be remembered
with honour.
Whether the Chouans of the present day are of
the same stock, feeling the same intense sentiment
IN ITS BEAUTY. 85
of allegiance, fighting with the same unity of hearts
and purpose; or whether, as their enemies will
have it, a robber spirit of gain, or an assassin one
of vengeance, has in too many instances dis-
placed the original holiness of belief and motive,
I am not competent to decide. But the old Ven-
deans, those brave peasants who had become war-
riors from faith and love, who left their fields
untilled to gird on the sword and follow their lord,
or their lord^ children, to the battle, were of an
undoubted mould. They had never quitted the
shelter of their woods, had never been any thing
but quiet burghers of the forest ; yet went out
boldly to fight for the cross of their faith, which
their pastors told them was in danger, and for the
children of Saint Louis, to whom they had sworn
fealty ; and whose chief they in their simplicity
still, perhaps, imagined giving laws under the great
oak of Vincennes with his crown on his head, the
holy Evangelist on his knee, and his royal mantle,
wrought over with golden bees, on his kingly
shoulders.
I am no politician ; but I can hardly imagine
any one of a fine and admiring mind, however op-
86 RUFFEC.
posed its views and feelings may be to the views
and feelings which actuated this ardent and pri-
mitive people, reading the charming memoirs of
Madame de la Rochejaquelin without a sentiment
that joins itself to the simple and pious enthusiasm
of those new crusaders of the west ; or approaching
a spot, where the sweet and secluded aspect of
nature was fellowed by the pure lives of those who
were nursed in its bosom, without lingering for a
moment in thought, perhaps in fondness, on its
story.
But little of the romance of war now remains ;
of its parade, however, we have more than enough.
Peace is my delight, but the apparel of strife
meets the eye every where. Even here at Ruffec,
drums rattle, trumpets sound, troops change quar-
ters, prefets compliment commanders, and com-
manders extol prefets, each sprinkling his oration
with a few loyal allusions to keep the next door
neighbours in order. A review has just now taken
place; and by and by there will be a dinner, — a
loyal, patriotic, mixed monarchy dinner, in which
of course, as this inn of Ruffec has a high gas-
tronomic reputation, all the produce of the hot
POLITICS AND THE PRKFET. 87
south will be set forth scientifically. In the mean
time, the troops defile before Monsieur le Prefet,
who nods approbation, graciously overlooking the
ill-assorted appearance of the country lads, who
have wedged themselves into the ranks in their
flapped hats and short jackets, — mountain free-
booters rather than soldiers in the outward man,
and probably much more like the real William
Tell, than the Austrian officer with hessian boots
and ostrich feather, who represents that brave
peasant, not only at opera-houses in general, but
on the walls and sign posts of his own native Swit-
zerland.
And now the show is over : the prefet has
made his last speech, and the people, tossing up
their hats in the air, shout " Vive notre prefet!"
upon which his honour, a natural man I suppose,
waves his beaver, and huzzas with the crowd.
In these and similar consolations, (such as they
are.) the calamities of war are often forgotten ; and
though the story which the high-spirited boy hears
from his maimed father may be a sorrowful one; or
more sad still, the one with which a widowed mother
checks for a little while the riotous current of his
88 WAR AND ITS ATTRACTIONS.
young blood, and tames it into not unsweet, though
premature staidness, still the drum and the trum-
pet — and alas ! the fringe and the feather, will ex-
cite those who have ardour, and seduce those who
have vanity. If to defend that which is dear and
sacred, — the palladium of liberty or the home of
love, so be it, — and may blessings go with them !
but if to learn the mysteries of vice and pipe-clay
in the barracks of a country town, or wear out life,
perhaps lose it, on a distant and pestilential shore,
to forfeit the reality of independence, and be flog-
ged out of the sentiment of honour, — better to
labour in the fields, and die in peace amongst them.
To all which the answer is, and ever will be this,
— there are certain things that must be done, and
people must be found, bought, coaxed, or excited
to do them.
THE EVE OF ST. JOHN. 89
CHAPTER VI.
THE EVE OF ST. JOHN — ANGOULEME— A MITRED MUSE
AND A GOSSIPING CHAMBER-MAID FAMILY CUSTOMS
THE IMITATIVE FACULTY — DESCENT FROM ANGOULEME
— CAVIGNAC — FETE DIEU — TWO SIDES OF THE CAN-
VAS — THE BOUQUETS OF THE FETE-DIEU THE EFFECT
OF THE CEREMONY ON THE MIND — OUR NEIGHBOUR
ANTICIPATIONS — CUBZAC— THE FERRY-BOAT AND ITS
CARGO — BORDEAUX AND OLD ITALY.
Every house from Ruffec to Angouleme is gar-
nished with green boughs in honour of St. John.
There is no saint in the calendar whose fete is
kept with such sweet and simple testimonials, as
those which custom has consecrated to the eve of
St. John, — the patron of shepherds, the particular
saint of the valleys and the hills ; he who preached
in the desert, whose raiment was of camel's hair,
and his meat locusts and wild honey. I would not
tell to every one all that I think of when I hear
the canticle of St. Ambrosius sung by the shep-
herds ; and see the bonfires on the mountains,
90 ANGOULEME.
or along the still sea-shore, and look at the chil-
dren dancing round them, and the flames blazing
or dying on the sky, or scattering their uncertain
fire from some lonesome strand in stars upon the
summer's evening sea. The boughs and nosegays,
too, tied up in the form of a cross and hung upon
the doors to keep the witches out, have something
innocent and believing in them that delights my
heart ; and so do the rustic gatherings — more fre-
quent on this night than on any other of the year,
where piety is cheerful, and the young spirit of
festivity remembers in the midst of its enjoyment
that it is a holy eve, — the vigil of his birth who
came to bear record.
As we advance towards Angouleme, we get amongst
vines, but not amongst vineyards : there are few re-
gular ones; grain and vines alternate like the stripes
of a ribbon. Many small woods and scattered trees,
but the fine single ones have staid behind witli the
god Mars, of whom we hear nothing more at present.
The town of Angouleme is next door to the sky.
I can only judge of it from the dull specimen of the
faubourg in which the Hotel de la Poste happens
to be situated ; but I should think it must be finely
THE MITKED MUSE. 91
placed. It has a view, — a celebrated one, over the
valley of the Char, and which all travellers (we are
told) run up to see ; but as the ascent is out of the
question for me this evening, I shall quietly wait
the opinion of my advanced guard. Wide and
showy, is the report ; from which I conclude, that
its beauties have more of display than interest, and
very possibly may be doing them injustice, for the
country is rich and varied, and a soft landscape
opens beneath, which the town domineers epis-
copally.
This word episcopal, which so especially suits
those lofty sites, where the cathedral has outlived
the castle, and the priest the chieftain, recals to my
mind that pious bishop — and afterwards saint —
of Angouleme,* who, being also a poet, wrote a
certain allegory, entitled Pipte, ou la Chasse du
Dieu d 'Amour ; in which Beauty is maid of honour
to the Queen of Love, Youth her ambassador,
Espoir de Jouir her grand falconer, Hardiesse
her counsellor, and Deduit Joveux her maifre
d'hotel. The path to her Chateau de Plaisance is
by the Verger d'Amour, the road De PEsperance,
* St. Gelais, BUliop of Angouleme.
92 A GOSSIPING CHAMBERMAID.
the forest De Gracieux Desirs; but the stag who
has run away with her heart, (which he wears on his
antlers) lurks in the Buisson de Tristesse. Such
were the laudable recreations of a mitred muse in
the beginning of the fifteenth century. Nothing,
in those good days of the church, was considered
unseemly, unless it was heretical; nothing either
of speech or action was prohibited to the faithful ;
while a careless word, or a thought falsely inter-
preted, ensured to the suspected the honours of
the Inquisition. The cathedral of St. Pierre has
a high reputation amongst the old churches of
France; but I can vouch for nothing but my fau-
bourg, — my knowledge of Angouleme extending
no farther. It must have a fine look out, but seems
a still place, — no longer the Angouleme of the old
rejoicing times when the Black Prince held his
court there, with " grand foison de Cheualiers et
d'Escuyers ;" but it is not without its attractions,
and rare ones too, if what a communicative cham-
bermaid who runs in and out much oftener than
necessary, informs me be true ; for, according
to her account, the ladies of Angouleme are sin-
gularly beautiful ; fresh, too, as May-dew, and
FAMILY CUSTOMS. 93
otherwise exceedingly engaging; all owing — I mean
the beauty and freshness — to the purity of the air.
They are also coquettes, pas trop, but enough to
set off' their natural advantages. I have no means
of ascertaining the limits of the pas trop; probably
moveable ones, like the hurdles of a sheep pen,
which can be pushed backwards and forwards ac-
cording to circumstances.
The children of the house have been fete-ing
their father (who is a Jean) according to the pretty
family custom in France, where the saint's-day of
each member of a family is marked by certain
kindly and well-wishing tokens. I love every thing
that draws together the ties of kindred, and com-
memorates the progress of time by acts of affection.
The bouquet of the fete-day has something sweeter
in it even than its perfume ; and though this an-
cient usage may, on some occasions, dwindle into
empty ceremony, as others of still more reverend
origin often do, yet it is based on gentle, I may
almost say pious feelings. The little girl had a
nosegay, and the boy a drawing (a head of the
patron saint) for their father, and he had a kiss a
piece for them, and a cordial embrace for his wife
94 THE IMITATIVE FACULTY.
who set the jet cTeau in the garden playing in
honour of his arrival, for he had been out all day
on duty as a National Guard. When I met her
just now, and observed, by way of saying some-
thing, that this was a great holiday, she replied,
" Oui, Madame, c'est la fete de mon mari, 11 evi-
dently thinking more of her husband than of the
saint. I was exceedingly struck with the graceful
way in which this loving wife presented her little
daughter to me, and with her general manners ;
good breeding, and even refinement, are very fre-
quently met with in France where one does not ex-
actly expect to find them ; but a want of habitual
delicacy sometimes surprises one less pleasingly.
There is one faculty very remarkably developed
in almost every French woman ; and that is, the
power of adjusting herself to any change which
chance may make in her position. I recollect a
foreigner once saying, when a very beautiful girl
in humble life was the subject of conversation,
" She is able to be a duchess:" almost every young
woman in France, who is not of the downright
hardworking class, is able to be a duchess, should
the opportunity offer ; at least as far as the power
DESCENT FROM ANGOULEME. 95
of adopting the outward air and current manner
(and usually without exaggeration) goes. A
French woman is seldom devoid of a pretty kind
of gracefulness, which in all situations she knows
how to turn to account. Our women are not so
flexibly organized ; and perhaps the perfectly sim-
ple manners of an English woman of high-birth
and high breeding, whose good taste has preserved
her from affectation, may be more difficult to catch
and imitate successfully, than the more studied
and cadenced courtesies of a Parisian in the same
class of life.
The people here, though inured to the fervours
of an almost southern climate, begin already to
complain of heat, and seem much more alive to its
inconveniences than we are. To us the light air,
just quick enough to stir the leaves, feels still de-
liriously fresh ; but while we revel in its day-break
sweetness, they cry out "quelle chaleur!" — yet,
while thus complaining, the peasant women strut
about in strong cloth cloaks, and the men would
be called sensible dressers in Lapland. A fine
descent after leaving our triste faubourg, with the
valley and the river that flows through it opening
96 CAVIGNAC.
to the right ; and to the left the town making a
>tepping-stone to the sky, its girdle of walls sup-
ported on rocks, and its rocks on slopes of ver-
dure. Down below, a rich country with soft woody
ridffes and cheerful fields, in which the sweet,
pleasant work of hay-making is going on : as we
advance, some pretty bits, and some meagre ones ;
but the last not often. The meadows, hedges,
and single trees, make us think of England ; and
the flowers that grow in the green nooks and under
the looping briars, of many things which
If present,
Would be pleasant ;
But being gone,
Make moan.
Another touch of England : — cows feeding at
liberty in the fields, or browsing among the tufts
of purple thyme, that glow like amethysts on the
banks by the road-side I have often regretted
that the sight of cattle, free from the trammels of
the girl and the string, should be so rare a feature
in French landscape, that when it does present
itself it is noticed rather as a remarkable one. I
do not mean to sav that this is the case in all parts
of France, but in many.
CAVTGNAC. 97
June 25th. Arrived at Cavignac (a village and
a poste) in the midst of the fete-dieu. Streets
strewed with rushes, large nosegays of the show-
iest flowers, arranged in the form of a cross and
attached to every door, reposoirs at decent inter-
vals, and the whole population in movement. As
the grand reposoir was erected in front of the post-
house, we had a full view of the solemnity ; and if
it lacked the measured pomp and lofty ceremonial
which wealth and power confer on the same rite at
Paris, the deficiency was more than compensated
by the spirit and originality of the picture.
First came the devout women of the village,
with stern and reproving countenances ; and over
their heads shawls so disposed, as to take the fold
which the old painters give to the veil of the Ma-
donna. At each side of these holy personages
moved a confused crowd of female peasants, each
with a very white and very wide cap ; on the front
of which a handkerchief, largely folded and of the
most glowing colours, was laid flatly, so as to ad-
vance from the forehead and throw a shade on the
face. As the procession approached the reposoir,
all knelt down, the women forming a crescent at
vol. 1. F
98 FETE-DJEU.
each side, and spreading the ground with their
ample garments of yellow, dark green, deep azure,
and that full matchless red which so brightly
vivifies the dress of the French peasant.
At the other side were the men, more closely
grouped, old ones chiefly and bald, with clasped
hands and believing countenances ; simple and
pious rustics, whose hearty faith was (I thought)
more edifying than the conventional drone of the
officiating priests. But the women were the rich
bits of the picture, kneeling with their tanned
hands clasped together, and their dark, and some-
times very striking faces inclined downwards under
the shade of the folded handkerchief. One very
young girl, sunned into a rich copper-colour, but
with fine expressive features, and a grave devo-
tional air that contrasted singularly with her slim
and childish figure, was the very Egyptian Mary
of Carravagio. Altogether, the lights and sha-
dows, grouping and effect, were admirable.
But here ended the picture, and the interest ;
all the rest was profanely paltry. An old man,
with two dustman's bells, out of which he struck
most inappropriate music, preceded the standard
TWO SIDES OF THE CANVAS. 99
of the cross ; two children followed, dressed like
mummers, one holding a toilette pincushion, —
though dishevelled, — and otherwise arranged, to
image Mary Magdalen ; the other, a trumpery
glass box, with a sixpenny nativity in wax in it,
but evidently, by a fragment of sheepskin pending
from the shoulders and a distracted desert wave
given to the hair, himself the representative of
the Baptist. Then came a rabble of boys, some
in dirty surplices, others bare- footed, regulated by
a young priest more noisy even than his flock ;
and enclosing the whole, a double file of patches
in their working jackets, with rusty fire-locks on
their shoulders. The commander of the faithful
alone wore a uniform, and flourished his sword
in the teeth of his ragged regiment ; the chief
magistrate wore a sword also, and a tri-coloured
scarf, in which last fashion he was followed by
his adjunct, who, being a proper Sancho Panza
and sorely encumbered with flesh, could not con-
veniently kneel, so squatted down on a mound
in front of the more supple pietists, like a Man-
darin on the lid of a tea-pot.
As to the troops, they had quite enough to do
f 2
100 EFFECT OF THE
to take care of their fire-locks and personal safety,
without thinking of their devotions ; but the com-
mander was edifying. When the ceremony was
over, and the Egyptian Marys and Elizabeths,
with the women of Endor — for there was more
than one witch amongst them — had disappeared ;
the mistress of the poste and her handmaids, set
about stripping the reposoir ; and the lady, select-
ing three of the most effective bouquets presented
them to us with a Parisian slope of the body,
observing that they had been blessed, — " et cela
embellit toujours.' 1
Yet, notwithstanding its occasional paltriness,
and more than occasional ostentation, there is
something in the fete-dieu — not the town proces-
sion, but the village one — which I greatly love.
Something so imposing in the measured chaunt,
the bells hailing with solemn yet joyful sound
the passage of the Host, the clouds of incense
mounting skywards like the incense of the heart,
the perfume scattered by young and innocent
hands before the glittering canopy, the propitia-
tion of prayer, the heart-opening of thanksgiving,
the pious abstraction of the aged and the cliil-
CEREMONY ON THE MIND. 101
dren, that I have often — not only felt my ima-
gination affected, but my heart touched by its so-
lemnity. On one side are the old, who stand on
the threshold of eternity, and to whom faith is
all things ; on the other the young, who by their
innocence still belong to heaven, both holding fast
by hopes and promises sincerely indulged, and de-
voutly trusted in ; but which, in the middle stage
of life, are too often slighted and forgotten. Their
piety is touching, — there is comfort in it.
Years have passed away since; but I still re-
member with pleasure the pious bustle of the good
folks at , when the droning murmur, faintly
heard at a distance, deepened into the full bass
that announced the approach of the procession ;
and have not forgotten the cordial feeling which
the display of our best carpets on the walls excited
towards the English heretics. A Swiss protestant,
who was our neighbour, and one of these hard
men who " will not give the spirit of God leave
to breathe through the pipe it pleases, 11 used to
grumble at an act of complaisance, which he (who
preserved his carpets as a beauty does her com-
plexion) affected to think a culpable one. To
102 OUR NEIGHBOUR.
have closed our gates, or stood at them deridingly,
he would have considered far more fitting ; but it
has always seemed to me, that if we are bound —
and that we are, who can doubt? — when we intrude
upon the ceremonies of a mosque, or thrust our
faces into a Jewish synagogue, to abstain from in-
sulting those rites which others deem holy ; how
much more incumbent does the observance of de-
cency become in a Christian land, where the same
belief lives in all hearts, though the form by which
it manifests itself be different ! To this our Swiss
neighbour would have answered, (having the wear
and tear of the carpets before his eyes), that to in-
sult, was one thing; to countenance, another. In
law affairs, acquiescence is, I believe, considered
as complicity ; but in matters of mere benevolent
feeling, where neither a great truth or a revered
opinion is called in question, the acquiescence of
kindness may surely be permitted.
How many anxious thoughts do anticipator?
give to misfortunes which never arrive ! It is an
odd fancy that of taking troubles at interest ; vet
many have it, and love to give it to others who
are more hopingly disposed than themselves. Be-
ANTICIPATIONS. 103
fore we left Paris, we had heard so much of the
misery of travelling southwards in the hot months,
that nothing but the imperious necessity which
compelled our journey, could have prevented us
from giving it up altogether.
" Have you ever travelled in summer through
the south of France?" was a question always put
in a tone of commiseration, and sure to be followed
by " such heat !" ejaculated pityingly, with a turn
up of hands and eyes, and a specification of evils
which there was no possibility of escaping, — ex-
haustion, inflammation, a daily broil half as hot
as a martyrdom, and perhaps a brain fever in
perspective. Yet here we are, almost at Bor-
deaux, after the most delightful journey imagi-
nable, bowling-green roads, cheerful scenery, and
such a climate as one might expect to find in the
island of Madeira.
This is the 26th of June ; and yet there is a
freshness in the air, an elasticity, that has a per-
ceptible effect on the mind. I had anticipated a
heavy, sultry atmosphere, pressing like lead upon
the spirits, or else a sky of fire ; but it is vernal,
and of itself enough to make one in love with the
104
THE FERRY-BOAT
south : we have had no dust, and the hedges are as
green as when they first budded. Other years
may tell other stories, and the southern June may
sometimes merit all the fiery tales told of it, but
this June (at least the latter part of it) has been
one long spring day.
At Cubzac, we found the ruins of a castle three
parts demolished — and with man's help, I should
think, probably for the materials; but still pro-
ducing a mellow effect : warm masses of stone, with
a luxuriant covering of fig and ivy on some of the
stray fragments. Embarked in a ferry-boat to cross
the Dordogne, a river here of noble breadth and
poor accompaniments, but just as we were pushing
off, arrived the malle poste, and detained us nearly
half an hour, a delay to which the Gascon blood of
one of our post-boys could by no means accom-
modate itself. Some men in office about the boat
particularly excited his displeasure, to which he
gave such vehement utterance, that his words
rushed out four abreast without order of prece-
dence. He asked but five minutes — three would
do — to be alone with his adversary, and he pro-
mised himself the pleasure of strangling him hand-
AND ITS CARGO. 105
somely. But the words were moonbeams com-
pared to the accompanying gestures ; every move-
ment was a spasm, every look had half a dozen
murders in it : when suddenly, having thrown
off his foam and finding himself unanswered, and
as he thought unanswerable, he turned like the
tide, and ebbed into gentleness.
At length we got off, with a true Murillo beg-
gar, a young Bordeaux shopman who did all he
could to sink the counter in a " swashing outside,"
and the malle poste company. Our ferry-boat was
no relation to that
- - - " fatal and perfidious bark,
Built in the eclipse ;"
but an unwieldy machine, heavy and helpless as a
sleeping porpoise, propelled by wheels set in mo-
tion by six worn-out horses, blind as Belisarius and
chosen so expressly, who plod on in their eternal
circle, all the more tranquilly for not being able
to look about them. When we landed, a woman
came to us, offering cherries for sale ; she had pro-
bably been seasoning the marmite, and smelt as
thy my as a fillet of veal — country stuffing, with a
due mixture of sage and onion ; in short, a perfect
f3
. . 6 VAN".
...'.■.:•. : V,:> ; ,:--/'f>. ;V.V. ^"..-'.n I.' '. .'V '. •> - ^
1 >;\l ^ N -
ami onnmM . - - - -
.......:' I Aft B
cbam ?-....* Clus «Hs «gttr;'
then
.•-.\ _ . s n\ .' .-. : .- -. .-.-.-. ; . ::-.. " â– 'â– ' â– 'â– - V- " * â–
. ■.'. — :. ;v ■. . - ...
palms and triumphs, yet es them.
. .
iatv 4s, and bet U but lost tl
. . . .-. * a > - -
Stat and Sons, and the house of Barron
I H l ha .igh I hardly
know from wher.. «ev ; for K -
and the great glories, which still stick - set/,
either in presence or in thoug the great com-
mercial cities of old there must be mar
these smaller points minting here which, like the
OLD ITALY. 107
vase of water on the table, the lily in the lady's
hand, the pearl in her ear, or the greyhound on
the carpet, — I am speaking of a picture, —catch the
light, and by judiciously diffusing or concentrating
its povver, heighten the general effect, to which they
are subordinate ministers. If the people of their
great days have passed away from Florence, Ge-
noa, and Venice, the traces, and more than the
traces, of their habitation remain. We may tra-
verse their galleries, meditate in their halls, enter
into their secret chambers, repose on the very seats
where their wisest have thought, and breathe in
the identified spots where their noblest have acted.
The altars, the palaces, the statues, are still there;
and if their women now flutter in French -bonnets,
un-italianizing as much as possible their fine and
characteristic faces, the sweet and sedate mothers
of their race still live, benignly gorgeous, on the
walls of their fathers 1 homes.
108 BOB 01. A IX
CHAPTER VII.
BORDEAUX COUP o'lEIL — ITS SHOWS' I'ATHEPRAI. -
MICHAEJ S CHURCH ano CRYPT— THE (HANTS OF »
pr.U'X- WOMEN— STYLE OF BEAUTY — DRBS8 — MY TITIAN
IJREIN \Nli V101 FT — THE QUAYS AT BORDEAUX AND
AT PARIS— BEAUTY AGAIN — THB 1ADV OP BORDEAUX —
rPS BREAT MEN.
The approach to Bordeaux is along a plain, call-
ins; itself La Bastide. not a thirty-seven leaguer,
like the Vega of the Moorish Grenada, but half
enclosed bv pleasant hills, well studded over with
compact country houses, and garnished with vine-
yards, small shrubbv plantations, and flower-knots,
just now prodigal o( bloom, and in exquisite
ouler. Our first vie* of the city was a distant one.
and too flat to be striking. — I was going to say :
but have just recollected that a city, marked out
onlv bv its spires and cupolas, standing up in the
centre of a vast plain, has often a lordly look, an
air oi unshared dominion at once proud and lonely;
and I ha\c seen towns on the level bank o\ a riv^r.
BORDEAUX. 109
whose steeples seemed to rise out of the water like
the masts of many vessels anchored in close neigh-
bourhood, produce a fine and imposing effect: but
this first look was, I thought, common-place.*
A nearer view, however, mends matters, and
displays the city in its greatly-admired and finest
point of view, forming an irregular semicircle, of a
prodigious span, that follows the bend of the
Gironde. The quays are of a noble breadth, and
the buildings which, taken as a whole, have a very
handsome appearance, present a long facade of a
bold and showy aspect ; the river is superb, broad,
free, and graceful ; and the bridge which the genius
of Dechamps has thrown over its impetuous cur-
rent, is not only a supposed impossibility overcome,
but a splendid and useful monument obtained.
All this sounds fine, and really is so. But I
had imagined Bordeaux spread out airily over an
amphitheatre of bright hills, and find it turning
* There is no being literal, — or at least remaining
to, where preTets are active, or deputies watchful of the
interests of their constituents, or the splendour of their
departmental capital. The road which used to creep at
the bottom, is now carried over the hills ; and the first
burst of city, river, sails, and spires, is splendid.
110
COUP DffilL.
its back to the sun, and lying at full length along
the flat bank of the river. Besides it is, or seems
to me to be, something like the wooden towns which
were run up in the Crimea to cheat the Empress
Catharine's eyes with a false show of population.
The extent is exceedingly imposing, and the coup
d'oeil strikingly fine ; but the backward reach does
not seem to me proportionate to the three miles' 1
length ; and the gorgeous river decoration, which
prepares the mind for the wedged depths of a great
and crowded city, appears when looked at from the
bridge to be backed like a fine scene in a play, just
enough to keep it steady, and afford, through the
prescribed openings, the necessary distance. Were
it not for the old church and tower of St. Michael,
and the fine-drawn spires of St. Andrew, there
would be nothing, or almost nothing, visible be-
hind the front screen. But for this want of eleva-
tion in the back ground, the coup d'ceil would be
perfect : a more advantageous point of view might
perhaps be obtained from the opposite heights.
I do not mean to say that Bordeaux is not a
large city, and a crowded one, but merely that
the proportions are not kept — to the eye at least,
THE CATHEDRAL. Ill
in the first general view. There are many very
striking things here. Of these the theatre, the
great hospital, the prefecture, the fine (though
short) street Le Chapeau Rouge, the quays, bridge,
river — already named, are the most remarkable. A
promising new quarter is now in progress; but
there are good things here, too, that are not new,
beginning with a fine old cathedral, grim and black,
having a rich portal elaborately carved, and six
leering bishops niched in it, with whose society I
was obliged to content myself while I waited at
the porch for my more effective companions. I
cannot quote my churchmen as lively company,
though there was a thought-exciting power, too,
about them, but as friends. O that we could al-
ways find living ones that (life excepted) were like
them! so safe, patient, secret, and unchanging:
and not bad counsellors either ; — none are who be-
long to the past, and convey in an unobjectionable
shape its salutary lessons.
The next church on the show list is St. Michael's
(very old) with its tower apart, as it sometimes is
in Italy. There are others, too, said to be curious
from their antiquity, and some fragments of a
112 st. Michael's church,
Roman amphitheatre, and other relics of the past,
but not numerous or, I believe, of high interest.
At St. Michael's there are vaults that possess the
quality of retarding the progress of decomposition,
and within which one who did not fear the shadow
of death, remained locked up for hours, noting
down by the light of a melancholy lamp its infi-
nitely various aspects of (as he said) " distress, dis-
appointment, dread, misery, and even desperation,"
in what he calls his book of sketches — I of thoughts.
Then pausing to listen to the retreating steps of the
old woman who had consented to lock him in, and
to the sullen grating of the door as he closed it
after her; and thinking, as he raised his eyes to the
grim and awfully-expressive figures that stood bolt
upright against the walls, — the cast off garments of
the great mystery ! horrible in their eyeless, voice-
less mockery, — how he might chance to fare, should
any accident befal, or cause her to forget him. He
had no provision but a piece of bread, and the sight
of that startled him, — there were many thoughts,
and painful ones, in it ; but he worked on, and
when the day was past she came again, and let him
out of his prison. Among the bodies is that of a
AND ITS CRYPT. 113
boy supposed to have died of hunger; his hands
seem to tear into his side; near to it is one whose last
agonies have left the terrible expression of the sar-
donic laugh upon his hollow features; and another —
a woman once, but some hundred years numbered
with the dead, whose teeth still glisten ! There are
awful lessons in this vault, and profound ones,
but the sight is distressing ; the outrageous, the
unpitying, the despairing aspect made permanent,
no shade, no light, no softening, always the same
dreadful look ! If the smile of an angel was to be
suddenly fixed and made eternal, it would become
at last shocking. Saw the gorgeous portal of the
very old church of Sainte Croix encrusted with fret-
work, and the richly sculptured one of St. Satur-
nine, — curious specimens of the old lavish style
of sculpture.
Every thing here is on a scale approaching the
grandiose, or attaining it: the hospital appears, from
its great size to have been intended for the general
depot of all the bodily infirmities of the depart-
ment. The within of a hospital, however bene-
ficent its purposes and wise its administration,
must always be a doleful lazar-house ; yet still
114 THE GIANTS OF BORDEAUX.
beautiful in its uses as a haven to the forlorn and
the suffering, who there find all the means of relief
which care and science can afford ; but the with-
out is here cheerful and inviting, and the appear-
ance of several sisters of charity, passing in and out
under the portico when we stopped before it, gave
gratifying assurance that kind, tender, and pious
women nursed and comforted the sick, — as such
women only can nurse and comfort, — with the moral
courage which can subdue disgust, (unconquerable
usually but by profound affection,) and the de-
votedness which a true feeling of religion inspires.
In the rosary of virtues, these magnanimous women
are the large beads ; and the sight of their serene
yet active figures, often makes me look into myself
with humble and reproving feelings.
But they have taken me away from the giants of
Bordeaux just as I was getting within sight of the
theatre, which out-giants every thing in its way at
Paris. It is now under repair and closed ; but
judging from its exterior dimensions, one should
suppose that the antique mask and mouth-piece
might be wanting within. The streets too are un-
usually broad for a southern town; the cafes, I am
ITS INSTITUTIONS. 115
told, make petits pavilions of those of the capital,
and the houses, though the basement story is often
appropriated to the reception of wine-casks, or (a?
in Naples and some other Italian cities) to the ex-
ercise of mean trades, are spacious and handsome ;
others stand aloof from such unseemly association,
and most have the large balconies that break so
agreeably the dull monotony of a brick or stone
wall. But nothing seems bound together; every
thing looks scattered and wildish, — an effect much
increased by the quantity of building materials
strewn about every where, and by the present
whiteness (no rain for six months) of the ground.
These disadvantages may be only casual, but they
are unpleasantly demonstrative, and greatly spoil
the general view.
Bordeaux possesses all the public institutions
which should distinguish a town of its importance ;
a royal college, a royal academy, a library con-
taining many curious MSS. — among others, a copy
of Montaigne's Essays, with his own marginal
notes; schools of medicine, botany, painting, &c. ;
and several societies — literary, scientific, and ex-
perimental. It possesses, also, a very remarkable
116 FEMALK STYLE OF BEAUTY.
female population. To the casual observer, all
the women here seem handsome, many downright
beauties, or at least of that showy, spirited, and
attractive style of countenance which passes for
such at a first glance, though not always at a
second. The grisettes of Paris are less striking
than those of Bordeaux, but carry themselves more
decorously ; the leading expression here is galliard,
even to boldness ; often unpleasantly assured, but
sometimes with a mixture of dignity in its assur-
ance that helps to soften it down a little. I dare
say they may be very prudent, discreet, industri-
ous women, — household models, perhaps ; but to
prevent unjust surmises, they should be ticketed
on the shoulders like the twelve Virtues, who
(according to certain ancient chronicles) slid into
the festal hall ready labelled. The style is not a
good, though often a grand one: it might not, per-
haps, pass muster at Paris, — few things pass in a
capital that are not crutched on the modes and
manners of the hour ; besides, there is something
national in beauty that suffers by transplantation.
The Roman beauty might be thought stern and
unvarying in a Paris ball-room ; the Paris one
DRESS. 117
manieree and fade at a Roman festa : and per-
haps the grisette of the Boulevards or the Rue
Vivienne, — pretty a force de toilette, and conscious
as a court beauty, might find the splendour of the
grisette Bordelaise vulgar, and her coquetry coarse.
Yet it would be difficult to find a larger floating
capital, — not of ideal, but material beauty, than
in this chief city of the antique Guyenne.
The gay madrass seems purposely invented to
aid the effect of a saucy confident figure ; it is
always of the richest and most vivid colours, and
put on here with a degree of coquetry remarkable
even in France, where, to make the most of nature's
gifts, is never considered heinous. Pale green,
orange, and glowing ultramarine, are the favour-
ite colours, but the magic is in the arrangement.
I write at my window in full view of one of the
most distinguished of these characteristic head-
dresses that I have yet seen,- — colours violet and
pale green, tissue rich and glossy, bound round
the head an inch above the dark and delicately
defined eyebrows, and with one long jetty ringlet
framing in the cheek of cream at each side. No
bloom, but a fine marble symmetry of features
118 MY TITIAN.
and a full tint in the lips. My sketch wants life ;
it is cold and still, but the original speaks like a
portrait of Titian or Giorgone, and in a far dif-
ferent strain of eloquence from those unbreathing
semblances which still exist of the immaculate lady,
in whose honour green and violet* have been ren-
dered immortal. I do not mean to pass oft' my
chiselled beauty as a specimen of the style general
here, which is essentially flesh and blood, a vigor-
ous contrast to all that allies itself with the severity
of sculpture, but merely note her down as a fine
variety.
At the fall of night, La Rue de Tlntendance
echoes to the pattering of feet, like Oxford-street
or Piccadilly ; but when I look out from my bal-
cony in the morning, I see nothing but the gay
madrass, and a few pre-occupied business men
walking along the shady side of the street. Now
and then a carriage passes, a heavy caleche, or per-
haps a hackney coach ; but oftener a sledge drawn
by oxen almost as ponderous as elephants. The
* The colours of Laura's robe, when Petrarch first beheld
her in the church of St. Claire, at Avignon. For a long
time after his eyes saw nothing but green and violet.
THE QUAYS AT BORDEAUX, 119
fashionable quarter, in all towns the dullest in sum-
mer, and often the least original or amusing in any
season, is still as death ; the quays lively, though
not even there does the bustle exist which I ex-
pected ; and the port is now far from containing
" Plus de barques et de vaisseaux,
Qu'aucun autre port de la terre,"
as La Chapelle tells us it did in his time. No ap-
proach to the pressing, elbowing, urgent turmoil
which characterises the London business-streets ;
nothing like the full tide of life that rolls through
every channel of that jammed and choking city,
which may well be called the workTs mart.
But here the quays, thronged or otherwise, form
a noble feature ; we have none, which, with such
a river as our magnificent Thames, is a crying sin .
In Paris the Seine is but a thread ; but what
quays ! what picture ! what architectural effect
and harmonious combinations of form and colour-
ing ! Who ever passed over the Pont des Arts for
the first, or perhaps the fiftieth time, without paus-
ing to look admiringly, — first upwards from the
line of palace and of wood which runs along the
river to the hills, then downwards through the fine
120 AND AT PARIS.
vista of castellated-looking houses, varied in form,
rich in colouring', emerging, retreating, dividing,
narrowing, with all its story, and all its marvellous
clearness, shade, and splendour, and its remark-
able air of stationary calm ; an effect probably pro-
duced by the long-retreating avenue of fixed objects
through which the eye is led, not by a street thronged
with fluctuating crowds, banishing by the rapid
circulation of life all character of quiet ; but by a
slow river, rarely animated (at this part of its stream)
even by casual movement. This effect* is even still
more remarkable from the Pont Royal, where the
fine scenic view of the Pont Neuf, and the retreat-
ing lines which divide and fly off from it, being
farther removed from the eye, lose in distance
whatever movement may belong to its nearer
points, and aided by the wonderful transparency
of the atmosphere, assume that peculiar air of living
stillness which characterises a finely executed pano-
ramic painting. Looked again on the river and its
* Now very much spoiled Ity the new bridge, which in-
terrupts the run of the eye, and divides the river into bits
most vexatiously. It is a utility, and a great one; and I am
obliged to think of this whenever I iook across it.
BEAUTY AiiAIN. 121
fine accompaniments, and then walked along the
gallery that runs through the interior of the bridge,
— I should say galleries, for there are several ; by
means of which water may, if necessary, be con-
veyed from the river to the town, and the state of
the bridge examined and repaired without inter-
rupting the circulation of carriages. Never saw any
thing more exquisite than the light on the aereal
spires of St. Andrew, as we came again above
ground ; they looked like consolidated vapour, of
a pale grey blue, and perfectly diaphanous.
Here is not the same pictorial effect as at Paris,
but there is great extent, — a splendid river, ship-
ping enough to give interest, though not (just
now at least) to equal expectation, lofty and spa-
cious buildings, good colouring, and considerable
movement. Nor should the green hills be for-
gotten which form the opposite bank of the Gi-
ronde ; and when its surface is crowded with masts,
and its quays with busy people, must afford a soft
and grateful repose to the eye, fatigued with the
pushing, jostling, and confusion of a trade port.
An unusual proportion of women on the quays,
standing about, or sitting before the doors, with
VOL. I. G
122 THE LADY OF BORDEAUX.
their peculiar air of Montserrat or Honduras.
Complexion apart, the humbler class of females
here are quite Creoles ; — the easy shape, disengaged
air, and love of glowing colours. Had Yarico, in-
stead of sea-shells and coral-branches, worn a ma-
drass, she would have tied it on as they do : Bru-
netta,* I am sure, did so. But the complexion is
usually soft, pure, and brilliant, but with now and
then a variety that approaches to the warm tinting
of the isles, -f"
The most magnificent creature I ever beheld
was a lady of Bordeaux ; and while I write of
beauty, her charming form seems to rise up before
me, giving sweet help to my thoughts, and filling
my mind with pure remembrances. I was very
young when I saw her, and full of childish fancies
about things that looked like angels ; and then she
* Vide Spectator.
t Note at Bordeaux on a subsequent visit. — The gay ma-
drass has tumbled down a foot, and it strikes me that the
general air of beauty has tumbled down with it. Low caps
(Charlotte Corday's)and full blown faces, or handkerchiefs
slatternly flattened, are the order of the day — perhaps of
the police, as far as the head-dress is concerned; for the
people in France rarely change their costume voluntarily,
and each provincial town or district has one of its own.
THE LADY OF BORDEAUX. 123
came and gave my dreams a beautiful consistency,
I have never forgotten her amazing loveliness, —
amazing even in its retiring sweetness ; and when
other beauties have raised a moment's wonder, she
has come like the evening star, effacing (yet as if
unwillingly) their paler light by her pure lustre.
Our ideas of French Venuses are usually taken
from Mignard's beauties, who all look as if they
were rouged; or from Lely's goddesses, the brilliant
ornaments of our second Charles'' Frenchified court,
whose large, pulpy figures, even eye-brows, and
velvet eyes, seem to us all of the Montespan family.
But my incomparable Bordelaise was of another
order of beings, millions of miles above all toilette
influence ; yet not the rainbow-phantom of a love-
sick poet, but a sweet and wife-like woman, inno-
cent and majestic as Milton's Eve, with a serious
earnestness of look, and a young bloom lighting
up her exquisitely chiselled features. I shall never
forget her, and feel myself looking about here for
something that might seem as if it belonged to her
beautiful blood.
Montaigne is buried here; that wise Michel
Sieur de Montaigne, who makes thinkers of his
g 2
124 THE GREAT MEN.
readers ; that pleasant Michel de Montaigne, whose
racy freshness would keep his works alive and new
for ever, — if there was a for ever for the works of
man. Montesquieu, too, was of this neighbour-
hood, and inhabited a castle a few leagues off'.
Such names give permanent interest to local habita-
tion ; the immortality of mind is on it, the surviving
spirit still stirs within it, outliving life : the tree
has been scathed, it is prostrate and withered, but
we still feed upon the precious honey that is
enclosed within its hollow.
The house in which Montaigne lived is said (or
known) to be No. 17, Rue des Minimes ; its having
been so distinguished is, as we are told, unindicated
by any outward work. The memory of Montes-
quieu is more honoured at his Chateau de la Brede,
where the chamber in which he habitually studied is
religiously preserved in the same state in which he
left it. Every foot of this ground is English his-
tory, as the shades of the Talbots and the Black
Prince testify. And wars more recent and more
terrible, — civil, revolutionary wars, the exciters to
all crimes, and developers of all virtues, have left
(blood-written) in the annals of this department a
THE GREAT MEN.
125
treasure of fine and touching recollections, — noble
and affecting records of the fate of some of the
most devoted and interesting victims of those great,
bad times, when the will was gospel, and the guil-
lotine law.
For were they not great and bad ? Great in the
amazing instances they afforded of public virtue
and individual heroism in their purest, most glo-
rious, and most exalted sense ; bad in many ways,
and in none more than in the wicked abuse of holy
words to atrocious actions, perverting minds by the
perversion of language, and using the sublime
speech of virtue to excite the ardent, and abuse
the weak into the commission of crime.
This evil still remains ; so does a portion of the
good, — great deeds and great views ; some on re-
cord, others in action, — none forgotten.
126 BORDEAUX.
CHAPTER VIII.
BORDEAUX, CONTINUED THE DRAMA THE TABLE
COQUETTES WINES AND LADIES BORDEAUX TO LAN-
GON THE GREY PARROT AND THE OLD NUN FRENCH
PEASANTRY LANGON THE CHAMBERMAID THERE A
LOVE STORY — THE EVENING LIGHTS YOUNG FANCIES
- — THE GARONNE FOREST SCENERY.
We have little music in the streets at night, which
in this summer season surprises me; for warm cli-
mates engender indolence which music gratifies, and
fosters that spirit of gallantry which makes sweet
sounds its medium. But the absence of music
from the streets is no proof of the absence of its
sentiment, — witness Italy. Music is probably cul-
tivated here, as it is in all wealthy and luxurious
places ; but whether in a feeling of its beauties or
its difficulties, as a high enjoyment or a refined ac-
complishment, a stranger like myself has no means
of ascertaining. Report speaks more decisively as
to a less ethereal taste; and if it speaks truth, the
THE DRAMA. 127
science of cookery is a study here, and a good table
the chief enjoyment of the Bordelais after his day
of occupation.
A taste for dramatic representations would
seem to be general also, if a judgment might
be formed from the size and splendour of the
theatre, which is esteemed one of the finest in
Europe. It is handsomely isolated, and presents
a facade which David would have snatched at for
the back-ground of one of his hard historical pic-
tures : it has the broad steps, the columns, the
ranged statues, — all that is necessary to throw his
senators, centurions, lictors, plebeians, (I have them
all before me on a chimney-board at this instant,)
out from the canvas. The actors are reputed ex-
cellent, and probably merit their reputation ; for,
when tragedy is put out of the way, French acting
is always perfect: it is nature faithfully and deli-
cately portrayed, with a nicety of shading that
fixes by a touch, and a complete absence of that
coarseness and exaggeration which is often thought,
and always falsely, to constitute the natural wheti
it only gives emphasis to the vulgar.
I say when tragedy is out of the way, in a very
English feeling ; I am aware of this : for whether
128 THE DRAMA.
right or wrong, we can never be brought over to
French tragedy, or (with the exception of the
immortal Talma, who broke through rules) the
French mode of acting it. We allow that the
tragedies of Racine, considered as dramatic poems,
are eminently beautiful ; but as transcripts of the
nature and passions of man, and of all that is born
of that nature and of those passions, they are, at
least to our perceptions, cold and often speechless.
So are most of the classical French tragedies ; and
when I think of them, I sometimes cannot help wish-
ing the illustrious family of Agamemnon extinct.
The French are even with us. They do not love
Shakspeare; but neither do they hate him as
Voltaire and Frederick of Prussia did : indeed
some have come over to his side, and learned to
feel and acknowledge his infinite and amazing
power. I once heard a young man say, " les
petites demoiselles de Shakspeare ; " but he knew
better things afterwards, and had the good sense
to confess it. However, many still believe that
Monsieur Ducis is Shakspeare ; while others, (as I
have already said,) have lifted up a corner of the
curtain, and discovered the true Demetrius.
The theatre is closed at present, and the actors
THE TABLE. 129
dispersed on leave of absence. But the other
luxury of Bordeaux has no furlough. All who
delight in scientific and bile-provoking compounds,
know that the south of France is the great larder
of the capital ; but Bordeaux, being itself fountain
head for some things and next door neighbour to
others, has the first right of selection, and uses it.
In the south, the exquisite pale truffle of Provence
is turned to meet account ; and from thence all
that gratifies the palate under the comprehensive
shape of pate is sent abroad into the world, led on
by the sublime pate de foie gras, (disputed, I
believe, by Strasbourg,) and followed by the crowd
of minors that come thronging on its back, as the
little rivers do on the great Nile in the Tuilerie
gardens.
Who has not heard of, even if they have not
tasted, the unsophisticated oil of Provence, pure
and colourless as water ; the poulard truffe of
Perigord ; the unbrandified claret of Bordeaux ;
the liqueurs of Marseilles; the nougat* of the same
* The nougat is a sort of cake composed of filberts,
pistachio nuts, the kernels of the pine cone, and Narbonne
honey.
G 3
130 THE TABLE.
emporium ; the oranges of Hyeres ; the muscat of
Lunel ; the ortolans, quails, verdiers, bee figues, —
the legions, in short, of winged things that sport in
their world of air one moment, and make exquisite
brochettes almost the next, — the olives, figs, an-
chovies, almonds, fruits dried and preserved, in
jelly, en compote, in brandy and out of it, — and
other countless delicacies which please and corrupt
the palate in this gastronomic land. Miracles are
performed (they say) under the shape of entrees
and entremets in this identical city of Bordeaux,
whose Medicis, though they may not live in quar-
ried palaces like the merchant-princes of old Italy,
probably know of many things of which the
Cosmos never dreamt.
Did even the Romans in their costliest banquets ?
I have little antiquarian lore ; but if the tongues
of singing-birds, and the brains of peacocks, and
lampreys that died a natural deatli in the warm
hand, were amongst the prime delicacies of the
table, — as well dine with frogs, or make one at a
grasshopper's feast, as sup in the hall of Apollo.
We had a small fish (the royari) highly esteemed
here, served to us to-day. It is of the sardine
COQUETTES. 131
family, or perhaps the sardine itself, and should be
eaten perfectly fresh. Ours were so, the waiter
vowed ; but we detected a slight salting, which
rather impaired the daintiness of the flavour ; or,
as I once heard a person say, when speaking of
a peach steeped in Madeira, abstracted from its
singleness.
If it be true that the manners of one class of
society may be taken as vouchers for those of
another, the ladies of Bourdeaux must be most
accomplished coquettes. I never saw so much
flirtability in action, as may be met with here at
every corner : from the air of effrontery mixed
up with it, the finer spirits are of course exempt.
My beautiful Bordelaise was the incarnation of
modesty, and so little a coquette, that her house
(it was affirmed) did not contain a looking-glass.
Whether this pattern of sweet austerity be rule or
exception, the ladies of Bordeaux best know.
I never taste wine ; so, as I cannot laud it
gratefully, have neither hymned La Fitte, Haut
Brion, or Chateau Margaux. Neither have I
touched upon the comet vintage, which so many
have glorified ; for not being sure that wine is a
132 WINES AND LADIES.
general benefit, and knowing that to myself it is
any thing but a particular one, I have thought it
as well to remain silent, and let others expatiate on
the necessary sandiness or stoniness of the soil; dis-
cuss the education of the vine ; decide whether its
fruits should be crushed by hands, or by feet ; or
resolve the more important question of the use, or
misuse, of brandy in correcting what lovers of port
call the insipidity of unsophisticated claret ; or
making a hot inflammatory wine of it, whether it
will or not.
No ladies have I seen at Bordeaux, — nothing
but a huddle or two of women cronying in the
street, whose silk capotes, or straw bonnets, indi-
cated their wearers to be a few notes in the scale
above the madrasses, — that is, in rank but not in
beauty. Dreams of Titian, Giorgone, and Van-
dyke, — of Florentine, Venetian, and Genoese ladies,
I leave you to be realized by others moi - e fortunate
than I have been ; others who have leisure to wait
for a winter ball, and if they be of the harder sex
(we, it is well known, are always called the softer)
courage to risk their hearts in its allowedly dan-
gerous atmosphere.
THE GREY PARROT, 133
Garden-houses, and gardens without houses, at
least visible ones, decorate the suburb by which
we left Bordeaux. A sea-port look about the
country dwellings, and a green parrot, or other
foreign bird — the well-known love-token of the sai-
lor, hanging out in its gay cage from many a cot-
tage casement. Whenever I see one of those
gaudy strangers suspended from an humble win-
dow, I always think of the faithful heart that re-
membered the home love, or perhaps the fond
mother, on the far-off, burning shore. But what
does the poor green parrot think of, in its brass
wire prison with gilt balls ? Does the leafy branch,
which some gentle hand has laid upon his cage to
shelter him from the vertical sun, recall his forest
home ? or has it been quite forgotten in the grow
and flip, the blustering oaths and rattling canvas
of the West Indiaman, or the African trader ?
Who knows ? — not the wisest.
I saw a parrot once at Black wall, with a wreath
of barberries in berry round his cage, and a crown
of the same, woven probably by the fingers of
some loving and fanciful maiden, above it. Poor
thing ! it was a grey parrot, and cried, Poor
134 AXD THE OLD NUN.
Poll ! at the top of its voice with such a melan-
choly scream ; and then, Pretty Poll ! with such
a gibing, yet cracked and forlorn tone, that no-
thing could contrast more pitiably with its berries
and its crown of vegetable coral than its sad-look-
ing self; winking dolefully, and eyeing with a sort
of disdain that might have had memory in it, the
wire balloon suspended over the grave, grey head;
and in which it was meant that the poor bird
should swing as if it had been a cradling bough.
But such was not its intention, for it stuck stiffly
to its perch, looking, in the midst of its barberries,
like an old nun on the day of a banquet in the re-
fectory : — fresh flowers, tied up as if by loving
fingers, blushing at one side; piled sweetmeats,
glistening in sugar, at the other ; comfits, cori-
ander, carraway, and almond, scattered with lavish
hand, and the green angelica setting oft' the tawny
orange ; novices caught in the snare, and entranced
in devotion, fragrance, and lolly pops, — but the
old nun, who knows what it is all worth, grim
and grey in the midst of it, like the poor parrot.
A light, sandy soil, excellent (they say) for
vines, but tormenting enough to travellers, who
COUNTRY TO LAXGON. 135
are covered with dust at every breath of air that
stirs its powdery surface. By and by we shall be
in the Landes, and then we shall have a bushel for
every grain, and perhaps, if any one were to put
us in mind of the green hedges &c, of which we
made affectionate mention three days ago, we
should believe them dreaming. Thus goes life:
we build, pull down, assert, retract, grow wise
sometimes, sometimes humble; but with every
sometimes find ourselves a shade less buoyant than
in those charming days when we took all things
on trust, our own good qualities among the num-
ber. All which has nothing, or at least very little,
to do with the state of the roads.
A populous and highly cultivated country to
Langon ; with pleasant-looking groupes of country
folks passing along the fields, becoming their fine
promise of grain and grapes, and each setting off
the other. The squalid labourer, with his care-
worn wife and ill-fed children, working a soil pro-
fitless to them, but made productive by their toil,
is a melancholy sight ; and when it meets the eve,
one cannot help grudging the harvest of their
labour to the absent or hard-hearted master. But
136 FRENCH PEASANTRY.
when those who cultivate the earth enjoy a share
of its abundance, the compact between the sinews
of wealth and of man becomes a mutual benefit ;
if the granaries of the master are full, the humbler
barn of the labourer is not empty.
Generally speaking, there is a gratifying absence
of palpable distress amongst the peasants of this
country, and a presence of — not exactly what we
should call comfort, but of cheerful content, which
shows that if they do not possess the former ac-
cording to our notions of it, they do according to
their own. In a country decidedly agricultural as
France is, the labourer seldom wants employment ;
and whatever may be the fraction to which land
divided and subdivided may come at last, the im-
mediate effect of the law, which makes the parent's
will and divides it equally among his children, is
to create a feeling (and to a certain degree a reality)
of independence, favourable to character, and con-
sequently to happiness.
The French peasant is usually a small propri-
etor, living on a bit of land which, however limited,
is his own ; a portion, perhaps, of the lot of con-
fiscated property which, in the old revolutionary
LANGON. 137
times, his father may have bought for next to no-
thing. He is not rich enough to be idle, but still
has a certain prop to back his industry ; if he
has no other patrimony, he has at least that of
sobriety. The habit of intemperance is very rare
in France: the husbandman's small means are not
swallowed up in brutal and individual indulgence,
but go to supply the wants of his family ; and
he must be out of luck if his wife is not a hard-
working body, a plain country woman wearing
the same clumsy cut of garment that her great-
grandmother did before her, — gay in it too, at
proper seasons, and if necessary, gorgeous; but
brisk and industrious, as French women usually
are in the active classes of society, and a cheerful
contributor of her quota to the general stock.
A neat inn at Langon, so we have stopped to
sleep. The Garonne bathing the fields and vine-
yards, and flowing gently under a new bridge,
which has just been pronounced the finest in
the world by a gipsy chambermaid ; who, taking
advantage of my being alone, has placed her wild
black eyes opposite to me, and opened a battery of
words from which it is useless to think of escaping.
138 THE CHAMBERMAID.
In vain I write : her tongue runs faster than my
pen ; her eyes fasten on me with a look of loving
ferocity ; and the idea of being in the way no more
occurs to her, than it would to a crown-princess,
if it pleased her royal highness to interrupt the
occupations of one of her ladies in waiting.
According to her account, Bordeaux is nothing
in point of luxury to Langon ; plain people come
here from thence to learn politeness, fine people to
practise it in a more congenial atmosphere. " Quelle
luxe ! (she exclaims) quelle gloire ! et les belles
demoiselles — les jeunes gens charmants ! ah, la fiere
jeunesse !" and so she goes on gasconading about
balls and operas, taste and gaiety ; till, pausing
suddenly, and rolling her extraordinary eyes as
if she was going to predict some horrible fatality,
she shoots off, with sundry Pythic contortions and
wild looks that solicit questioning, into a disastrous
story of two lovers of Langon : — so, as she will
not let me write, I lay down my pen and listen.
She has certainly never read Shakspeare, nor yet
Luigi da Porta, and probably knows no more of
Verona than of
" Cambalu, seat of Cathaian Can;"
A LOVE STORY. 139
and yet the opening of her story had much of the
old Italian novel about it ; only the Capulets of
Langon were more vigilant than those of Verona,
and so the young wooing was speedily brought to
an abrupt conclusion, the youth banished, and the
maiden watched, apparently to very little purpose.
The lover went to Bayonne, and from thence (as
my informer thought) to the end of the world.
He was many years away ; and when he returned
with bettered fortunes and a faithful heart, still
true to the image of her who was its early love, he
found her worse than dead, — a wanderer from the
paths of innocence, a lost and lonely thing, cast off'
by the virtuous, spurned by the severe, but more
than ever beautiful. Time had used him more
roughly, for he was changed out of all traces of his
former self, and she who had loved no longer re-
cognised him. The memory of sympathy was gone,
and the instinct of the heart with it.
An intense desire to guard her from the fur-
ther perils of her forlorn state, to be near her
who had no other friend, who had made herself
alone in the world, took possession of his mind.
He engaged himself to her as a servant; obtained
140 A LOVE STORY.
her confidence ; and she, not knowing whom she
spoke to, would sometimes talk to him of the
lover whose loss had driven her to despair, and
then to worse wretchedness ; for even in despair
there is depth below depth, and in the last and
deepest abyss — guilt ! blacker than all beside.
And here my strange narrator stops, nor can I in
any way induce her to continue. " It is too terri-
ble, 11 she says, with a forced stage shudder, " too
terrible to be told ; 11 and really, notwithstanding
the curiosity she contrives to excite, I begin to
think, that what with her wild way of telling it,
and her wild eyes fixing one as the interest
strengthens, it may be so from her lips. But a
voice of authority calls to her from below, and she
leaves me to piece together the broken threads
of her melancholy narrative, as my musing fancy
wills, though evidently vexed to be whistled off
just as she had begun to inform me that she was
not a servant of the inn, but rather a chance
visitor, who condescended to help, but who lived
habitually in a city (name unknown — Damascus
perhaps, or Bagdad) where things are on a very
extended scale of magnificence.
THE EVENING LIGHTS. 141
After all, I have not the least doubt that she was
herself the fair — or rather brown, inventress of the
whole romance, which probably came as glibly to
her lips, as the look of surprise did to her coun-
tenance when I urged her this morning to go on
with her story. " What story ?" she exclaimed,
seeming not to understand me; then, after a mo-
ment's pause, dashed off with a mysterious air, as
though she herself had been the unfortunate
heroine, which perhaps, in her insane coquetry, she
wished me to believe.
Strolled down after dinner to the boasted bridge,
which we found unexpectedly handsome, and on
our suspension plan. The sun had set, but while
one half of the sky was wrapped in the gloom of
twilight, the other half still glowed in the rich
amber spread which it had left behind. At one
side of the bridge the eye followed a long reach of
the river, with the yellow light of evening concen-
trated upon it, flowing through banks already dark
and indistinct; and then, turning to the other,
rested on the dim current — there out of the influ-
ence of the western light, which bathed the base of
the old church, and of the buttressed and ivied
142 THE EVENING LIGHTS.
walls that seemed to make part of it. Beyond the
church, a line of houses pleasantly placed and
coloured, took the air of a fishing village, and be-
fore it lay a crowd of small boats at anchor, gently
swayed by the ripple of the waters.
In such a light every scene is lovely, no matter
how trivial be its features. All day long the sun
is high above us; at night the stars and the pure
moon have a heaven of their own, to which we look
up reverentially, but distantly ; but at the last hour
of the day, the sky seems to come down to our
earth, whispering mysteries, touching it — as in fond
fellowship — with its last glow ; and in its sweet
confidences making itself almost one with our
familiar world.
While we enjoyed this placid evening picture,
the passage-boat steamed up from Bordeaux, and
throwing off its smoke with a whir-r, discharged
its red, blue, and yellow cargo (for the women are
lost in their all-effacing colours) on the strand.
Were I to come this way again, I think I should
prefer the river to the road : the last has no pecu-
liar interest, but the river flowing at the base of a
line of gentle hills, varied with pleasing, though
YOUNG FANCIES. 143
not perhaps striking objects, may have some food
for the fancy in it. Besides it is the Garonne,
which should go for something ; and the oppor-
tunity of mixing with the people of the country
for something (I think) also.
" On the pleasant banks of the Garonne, in the
province of Gascony — " It is thus that a potent
enchantress opens the most powerful of her stories.
This simple line presents a tjuiet image to the
mind, which, like many other quiet images, affects
it sometimes more than elaborate ones. It is, per-
haps, the mixture of foreign sound and home feel-
ing that makes it poetry to the fancy, though it
may be prose to the eye; be this as it may, it has
helped to turn many a young head, and has sent
some to the warm and teeming south, who have
not found it all that the lady of the wand had made
it out to be. I remember when I was under the
spell, and when the sound of the south of France,
or the name of Bordeaux on the stern of a vessel,
were charmed words, bringing with them a con-
fusion of fancies, which the reality has set in order
somewhat prosaically. Yet the first impression
I 44 i 111-. I. A HON I
still remains, and the word pleaaant t m> happily
chosen, always seems i«» me written on the land-
•cape.
As yet I have leen nothing loftier written on it
Wli;it the Garonne may be in theSpaniih valley of
the Pyrenees, where it lirsi makes Acquaintance
with daylight, I do not know, but shall, I hope,
presently! Here it is ;i gentle riveTj broad and
pure, wiili souk tiny rock work about it, hut hardly
enough to contrast the tufted foliage thai some-
times hangs from its crevices, or break it into little
pictures. It has no marked features: B cluster of
i rees, with an Italian-looking house peeping through
them; a group of monumental cypress making way
lor itself, and standing alone amidst gayer society ;
a meadow, a stripe of yellow strand; a bringing
together of quiet Images Imply not meagrely,
arranged in the uncrowded way which those great
painters, who took a tree, a pool, a hunk, and
mad I immortal pictures of them, loved : hut
nothing t<> hinder another who might love nature
too, though niter 11 different fashion, from calling
it nil barren, especially should he chance to see [\
on u dull day
loiiisr mi \i i;\
i r.
1. here were two steamers from Bordeaux ai
anchor, lull as hee*hives, and making the little
»j u.t \ look lively, but u>'( («>\>n like. No demand
here t * * i" stockings, and iu>1 much tor shoes; but
ilu 1 women pretty. Mid aware oi It Langon is
(anions for i<> DIM tit) OfOVtf c\cv\ (own luav is
famous lor something that Batters the palate An
indifferent road, dust and pavement i freuuent pine
woods; anil, in the intervals between them, an
enclosed country, golden .".rain, and haycocks nit
fusing their pleasant fragrance
Ami now we are in the Landes, which (here at
least) have much l» - ss character And more coloui
in.",- than l expected. A • we descended towards ill* -
sandy tractsi ;« fine forest stretch broke upon ui
To me •■> wide extent oi forest lias an inexpressible
charm ; 1 rejoice in its depth, its darkness, its
solemnity, anil the frequent ami lii<«;h t.Mud poetry
>>i us lone recesses, "here arc so man> secrets in
its bosom; luoh volumes ol (Iumi;>Iii ami laiioy in
its silence and in its sounds. In il<»- odours that
breathe from the leaves, the hark, tin* ;m.i.., .nul
from the wild flowers that seem to bloom for ui
VOL. I. n
146 FOREST SCENERY.
alone, and whose perfume, like a strain of sweet
and well-remembered music, unlocks the past, and
quickens its monumental effigies into life. O the
past ! the past ! how often do we think it dead and
gone, when it lies hidden in a fold of the heart,
from which even the fragrance of a flower can draw
it out again !
THE LANDES. 147
CHAPTER IX.
THE LANDES — AN AMERICAN SOLITUDE — THE COTTAGE
IN THE LANDES NOT THE TRUE DESERT — ROQUEFORT
AIRE — MY DECANTER-STOPPER PARADISE LOST AND
MONT DE MARSAN DOING ONE'S DUTY A GHOST
SOMETHING FOR NOTHING AT AN INN — PINE FORESTS
THE LANGUAGE OF TREES — DREAMINESS PETTICOATED
CATTLE DRESS MAIZE AND DUST THE PYKENEES
VICINITY TO SPAIN, ASSOCIATIONS AWAKENED AND
THEIR NECROMANCY VALLEY OF PAU — FAU AND OLD
BEARN.
As we wade through the sands, I look about for the
flying shepherds, but see no stilts, or (as far as we
can judge) any necessity for them. Nothing that a
sabot, or even a naked foot, might not plant itself
in with safety ; winter, however, may and probably
does make such things needful.
These sandy tracts are divided at intervals by
woods of oak or pine, and sometimes by delicious
meadows, that look as if they had run away with
their neighbours' verdure, to spread it out on their
own sweet bosoms. In the midst of the sands we
h2
148 AN AMERICAN SOLITUDE.
find now and then, and much oftener than we ex-
pected, a cottage that realizes — not the reality pro-
bably, but our fancy-pictures of the back settle-
ment dwelling in the forests of America : a dream
which, with the red men, and the wild beasts, and
the night alarms tacked to it, is not without its bad
bits, but whose life of active lonesomeness, or
family love-bound labour, has a fine aroma of
thought, and love, and freedom in it. Felling
trees, clearing unhealthy ground, hunting wild
game for food, is bitter work sometimes; hard,
dangerous, ungrateful toil: but the distant vision-
ary hears only the sound of the axe in the forest,
a sound than which no other yields a fuller start of
thought, of remote and primeval images, — or the
report of the far-off gun, another sound of man's
invention, — but full of woodland scenes and wild
ones, and boundless prairies, and winged legions
that fill the air with life, and all the solitude and
action of a primitive nature.
How often have I, who never crossed the Atlantic,
gathered together the members of the patriarchal
family after the labour of the fields and woods,
heaped the pine logs on the bright hearth, and
AN AMERICAN SOLITUDE. 149
drawn them all round the well-earned and cheer-
fully-enjoyed supper: the memory of the old home,
the mother-land, crossing perhaps the mind of the
aged with tender thought ; the young belonging to
the wilds, and happy in them. It is thus that fancy
pictures the forest settlers; or it takes a solitary
but loving pair, grown old in the spot which when
young they had cleared to build their cabin on, —
their cabin in the wilderness, where the stranger
seldom comes, but when he does is welcome : such
a pair as Lord Edward Fitzgerald, in the dawning
day of his beautiful spirit, describes with such
touching poetry of feeling sitting before the door
of their forest hut at twilight ; or the ancient
couple, who, gliding together out of life, still
thought of Scotland, and sang " Sae merrie we
twa ha"" been " at the evening hour, as the Abbe
Morellet (I think it is) tells us.
But I have strayed away from my cottages in
the Landes, — each standing on its own fresh lawn,
entirely detached from any other habitation, within
a grove of spreading oaks that might become merry
Sherwood, or old Windsor. Close to each cottage
is a circular well, with buckets suspended on its
150 THE COTTAGE IN THE LANDES.
beam, — a garden feature that cools the pulse a little,
though not so effectually as a fountain or a bub-
bling stream. It is probably the frequent mention
of the well in holy writ, that makes the sight of one
recall unfailingly to my mind the sacred volume,
with its desert images and infinite grandeur; the
thunders of its poetry, and the serious sweetness
and inimitable simplicity of its domestic narrative
— poetry too, and of the most beautiful kind.
There are no fragrant balsams here, nor palm, nor
cedar ; nor are the women's eyes in the least like the
"fish-pools of Hebron ;" but there is a soft colouring
of shared — not desolate — solitude about this land,
that has something of the sentiment of scriptural
poetry in it. As for the women, a fairer never
gleaned in the fields of Boaz, or came with her
sheep to the " well's mouth, 11 than one who at this
moment loads her mule at the door of a cottage
by the wayside: Hebrew too of aspect, but the
sometimes harshness of the Jewish outline fined
off, — Rebecca as she sat to Walter Scott, or the
Rebecca of the book of Genesis, when she gave
water from her pitcher to the eldest servant of
the house of Abraham. Indeed, the chance speci-
THE COTTAGE IN THE LANDES, 151
mens of the population which we have lighted on
in this best bit of the Landes, (of the sandy part of
it, I mean,) have been decidedly favourable ones,
becoming their pleasant habitations, which, were
they roofed with wooden tiles instead of red ones,
would resemble in many points the charming chau-
mieres of Switzerland. The sloping roof advances
beyond the entrance, leaving the house behind it
something in the Swiss way, and forming a cool
and spacious shed, of which the inhabitants seem
to understand all the advantages; for the women
ply their distaffs, and the children gambol under
its pleasant shade all the day long, playing at bo-
peep with the sun, and looking enviably safe from
its molestations.
Altogether the Landes are far less dreary than
we expected. Wherever there are woods, and some-
times where there are none, the ground is thickly
carpeted with fern, — that lover of barrenness,
whose large feathery leaf yields to every breath of
air, and refreshes the senses by its bright verdure
and fanning movement. Long lines of pine trees
sometimes streak the verge of the horizon, letting
in the sky through their boles like the gleaming
152 NOT THE TRUE DESERT.
of the summer sea. Even in many of the most
barren tracts, an exquisite red heath brightens the
parched surface; and wherever the soil seems re-
claimable by care, there are dwellers on it.
But we are not in the real heart of the Landes,
only on the selvage of the desert, — the embroidered
corner. It is towards the sea* that the earth
assumes the Arabian aspect which travellers have
described, and the scene becomes wide, and drear,
and desolate as the waste " towards Diblath ;" or a
piece of the great and terrible wilderness taken up
by the spirits of the air, and laid down upon an
eider-down nature that has yielded to its effacing
pressure. Here is too much habitation and vege-
tation for a true desert scene, — indeed there is no
approach to it ; and though, as we drive along, the
carriage sometimes rocks in the sands like a ship in
a storm, and the road is floored with trunks of trees
laid parallel with each other, still we feel ourselves
as if cheated out of the full complement of dreari-
ness on which we had counted, and miss the per-
fect originality of character which (forgetting that
our route was the post — and not the desert one)
* Les Landea sain ages.
MY DECANT ER-STOPPEJC. 153
we expected to find giving additional raciness to
the charming old superstitions, ceremonies, and
legends, which are said to be still in customary
observance and simple belief among the people of
the Landes.
Roquefort, — not of cheese celebrity, is pleasantly
lifted up, with a pretty stream winding in and
out under rocky banks. Passed through Aire, and
should have forgotten it, but for the somewhat
unusually steep ascent on quitting the town : the
whole contents of a seminary* were poured out upon
it, — priests (or the materials for them) enough
to supply missionaries for half the globe, and do
home duty besides,— at least so it seemed to me ;
but my maid, who is a calm calculator, could only
make out fiftv-eight, while to my eyes they seemed
grouped by hundreds; but the steep road, and a
refractory horse inclined to jib, may have acted as
multipliers.
Once upon a time, (and a long time ago it was,) I
had contrived to possess myself of a cut-glass de-
canter-stopper, and I can never forget the amuse-
ment I used to find in standing on a chair at the
* A sdminaire means in France, a college for priests only.
h3
154 PARADISE LOST AND
end of a long room, and looking through my stop-
per at the lights that burned on a table in the
middle of it ; nor the rapture with which I beheld
two candles multiplied into as many hundred rain-
bow flames. In the present case fancy, fluttered
by a little fear, was my decanter-stopper; for even
when I shut my eyes, there they were — my elements
of priesthood — floating in a kind of black dazzle,
like the dark spots that dance before me after too
much gazing at the sun.
Market-day somewhere : road thronged with
cattle, — horned and otherwise ; pigs numerous and
squeaking; and geese — I was going to say,
" Thick as autumnal leaves,"
&c; but it will not do to quote from that divine
book among the geese, and at Mont de Marsan.
Never was any thing like the human part of that
immortal poem. I have been reading in it to-day,
and with the deep delight which I always feel when
its amaranthine words are ope*n before me. Never
was the holy dignity of wedded love, the mutual
and entire confidence and sweet communion of two
natures, both ignorant of evil, and kindred still in
purity with the angels with whom they are per-
MONT DE MARSAN. 155
mitted to hold converse, so set in speech. Nothing
can one think of but innocence and majesty, love
and loveliness, after having wandered in " the alleys
green" of that true paradise, and scented the flow-
ing odours,
" Cassia, nard, and balm,"
of its wilderness of sweets.
But high-way or by-way ramblers cannot long
dwell upon a train of thought, however congenial
it may be to their hearts and fancies ; their actual
position is unfriendly to continuous musing, and
favourable to the quick impressions of a present
every moment changing : one image jostles out
another with undue, though irresistible lightness ;
there is no graduating from paradise to Mont de
Marsan
Mont de Marsan, however, has its qualities, — a
good inn tenanted by civil folks, who stripped their
garden of its roses for us ; a merited reputation for
ortolans ; a guide-book one for beautiful women —
merited too, perhaps ; an embowered public gar-
den ; a showy prefecture ; and probably all the
essentials of a chef lieu. We should have done
more justice to the excellent breakfast provided
156 doing one's duty.
us, had not two waiting gentlewomen stood behind
our chairs watching every movement, and antici-
pating every wish with such invincible assiduity,
that to eat was quite out of the question. O
how I envied the white cat ! what a luxury to be
served by hands only ! But those vigilant maidens
showed that they had eyes too, for they never took
them off of us. I never saw such a strong sense of
duty : no possibility of upsetting it. How often
did I wish them both with Spurzheim, who would
have revelled in their skulls, while we might have
gone on with our breakfast. Three or four times
I despatched the most distressingly attentive on
some idle errand; but she seemed to possess the
Irish faculty of being in two places at once, for
no sooner did she seem gone, than her toppling
madrass was again opposite to me.
Tormenting pertinacity ! and only to be equalled
by the unmannerly perseverance of a ghost, — a
woman spectre in a gown of rustling silk, of whom
I once heard a German tell. It was in the evening,
as he hung up his gun after a day's sport in the
empty hall of a solitai'y hunting-lodge, that she
suddenly stood leside him. The figure was of one
A GHOST. 157
not aged, and (as he expressed it) of bad beauty;
but he knew where she came from by her eyes, and
fled ; while she rushed after him with the noise of
a whirlwind. The pigeons in a dovecote outside
the house, hearing it in their roosting places, flew
out, beating their startled breasts against the win-
dows ; still the man fled : a chamber door stood
open ; he burst in, — two who had followed him,
alarmed by the uproar, did the same ; they double-
barred the entrance and shut out, as they thought,
their ghastly pursuer ; when lo ! she was there in
the midst of them.
" Madame, prefere-t-elle les bougies ?" is a
usual inquiry at an inn not saucy enough to in-
sist on certain refinements ; but here the pretty
daughter of the house, forestalling darkness and
entering while it was yet day with a pair of wax
lights, said, as she placed them on the table,
" Mamma begs you will use these, as tallow spots
her floors; but they will not be charged in the bill."
Nor were they : a piece of liberality I could not in
any way account for, not even with the help of the
floors, which are old, worm-eaten, chinky, and of a
fine ebony ground that bids defiance to casualties.
158 PINE FOHESTS.
Mont de Marsan, being the capital of the Landes,
attracts on market-days the inhabitants of the
desert regions, who throng here on stilts, going
(the inn-keeper assures us) as fast as the post. I
should not have thought that the sands through
which we rocked yesterday warranted such helps,
but they are used there as in worse places. I re-
gret not having seen a sheep-skin swain striding
through the air, with a bright madrass striding
after him, — or perhaps a country hood would be
better: less like the fringed and bugled family,
who attract gapers and gather sous at the corner
of the Paris boulevards.
The shade of the vine is too often, for beauty at
least, a mere figure of speech in France, where it is
cautiously kept down to the currant-bush dimen-
sions, to which is mainly owing the richness and
vigour of the wine extracted from its fruit. Here
we find it, and not unfrequently, trained over a
trellis, or formed into a bower or pergola. Three
or four avenues of plane trees ray out from Mont
de Marsan, prefacing a thick ety country occasion-
ally ennobled by oaks in splendid singleness, and
sometimes by solitary pine forests. Delightful
THE LANGUAGE OF TREES. 159
pine forests ! where the eye meets no tangled fel-
lowship; nothing but the light of heaven falling
between the detached trunks on the reddened earth
or the soft fern. There is something: so solemn
and monumental in the aspect of a pine tree, that
when I find a few planted together in a solitary
spot, it seems to me like a woodland cemetery,
where the hunter whose chase is over, or the wan-
derer who loved to repose beneath their shade, has
found a resting-place. Trees are powerful speak-
ers : the single pine, or melancholy cypress, has the
solemnity of the grave it shadows in its silent
speech ; it tells of the dead below, of the hand that
found a mournful pleasure in planting it. The
light acacia waves its beautiful boughs to let you
know that it is a pleasure-garden, or a summer
bower, which its bright leaves decorate. The oak is
ancestral, heraldic, feodal, from head to foot, and
would talk old castle legends and feats of noble
hunting and moonlight revelry by the hour, if
you would but stop and listen to them. The rooky
elm is a rustic lover's story-book, full of twilight
meetings, hand graspings, honest vows, and " if you
love me as I love you" poesy. The palm transports
160 DREAMINESS.
you to the Georgian vales, in whose deep shades
the royal Abbas wooed the wise and tender Abra.
The pear tree brings you back to the cottage wall :
the apple puts in its word with a long score of
school-boy larcenies : — all speak, from the stately
royalties of the forest down to the humble haw-
thorn — perhaps the fullest of any — of what the
village boys and girls call secrets.
A quiet country as we go on, with a sort of fraction-
al beauty about it ; a bit here and a bit there, and
bad bits too, as will happen. Sometimes a narrow
footpath hides itself in a thicket, wild boughs shade
it, and perhaps a wooden gate at the end opens into
a green meadow, as it might do at Coverly Hall, or
any other of these charming old places that cannot
be named without filling the mind with images of
genuine English scenery. At others, a single fir,
with a stately trunk and a broad parasol-head,
emulates the lonely beauty of the Italian pine, and
awakens that dreaminess of mind which the land-
scape of Italy creates and fosters.
It is perhaps owing to this same dreaminess, that
I have fancied one never sees the whole of any
thing in Italy ; the mind, like the eye, receives its
PETTICOATED CATTLE. 161
impressions through a shaded medium. The people
are the most natural, perhaps, in Europe ; and yet
— I do not know why, but it seems to me that one
never sees their outside edge. The French, who
are far more artificial, (partly perhaps 'from vanity,
and partly perhaps from irritability of feeling
which lays them bare,) expose themselves more to
critical observation than the Italians, who, it may
be, are too indolent to be demonstrative, and yet so
marvellously natural, letting their faults and fan-
cies drop out any way, that it seems paradoxical to
say one cannot read them through and through.
It is just the same with their landscape : the sky
spread over it is clear and cloudless, bright and beau-
tiful; and yet a soft vapoury haze veils the outline.
The carts in common use here are of a classical
form, and drawn by oxen with cloths hung over
them like petticoats; their horns are fiercely faced
with sheep-skin; and sometimes a garland of twisted
leaves is hung round the neck. With the garland,
the effect is that of an antique basso relievo; but
without it, the poor beast looks like a stage buf-
falo sheeted to hide its defective proportions, as
the prominent elephant in Blue Beard is flounced
162 MAIZE AND DUST.
to screen the boy in each leg. Sometimes we meet
cows yoked, and accoutred in the same way; con-
triving, poor innocent things ! to look wicked in
their fringed forehead-cloths, as children do in gro-
tesque masks'. Soft hills on the right to Grenade,
where the men look like morris-dancers, or Aladdin
before he raves princesses, or meddles with African
magicians and their lamps. White blouses open
at the throat, with shirts rainbow-striped, set off
with a bright scarlet sash inside them, and a small
flat berret of rich crimson, blue, green, or some-
times white, carelessly placed on one side of the
head. It is probably a holiday ; but this style of
dress, and especially the berret, becomes general.
To-day maize and dust : the first has been steal-
ing on us for some time, and the last hinders us
from seeing even the hedges. No talking now of
the young green, the protracted verdure of spring,
as we did on the road to Bordeaux. I recollect to
have heard a person, who had travelled outside
passenger through the extreme south of France in
summer, say, that he had never once during the
whole journey seen the horses' heads. And I can
believe it ; for if but a breath of air conies, we are
THE PYRENEES.
163
like sister Anne upon her tower; and as we run
along, a cloud runs with us dense enough to con-
ceal Brandabarbaren king of the three Arabias,
and all his warriors, whom the renowned Don
Quixote was happy enough to discover under a
similar envelopement. Changed horses at a farm-
house, where the boys of the hamlet, not having
time to gather cherries for us, tore down the
boughs laden with fruit, and thrust them into the
carriage; and little children followed us, cutting in-
describable capers, and flying along with flowers,
or grass, or weeds tied to the end of a flexible twig,
which they bobbed into our faces, — merrier by half
than opera Cupids, and quite as graceful.
Suddenly a beautiful descent opens with bright
glades and a soft depth of shade about it, and the
mountains of the Pyrenees stand for the first time
before us, veiled from head to foot. They come,
like shadows, dimly and awfully , and as we sink
into the valley, seem to depart from us like the
dreams of the morning. Again some sweet de-
scents, and then more landes, though we are no
longer in the department ; and farther on another
look at the still shrouded, and at this moment, me-
164 VICINITY TO SPAIN.
lancholy Pyrenees: no touches of evening light
linger brightly on their summits, telling their
neighbourhood with heaven ; but low grey clouds
cap them mistily, or gravely dividing, roll ofl'
slowly, revealing their bare forms without relief of
light or shadow ; which, as they become visible,
seem more like a pale, diaphonous outline traced
upon the heavens, than the solid limitary earth ; a
colossal phantom that appears near — even to ap-
proach us, yet without rounding into substance.
Only these mountains between us and Spain !
that " tawny Spain" which dreamers love, and
which seems to the imagination, — to mine at least,
such a far-off land ; farther, because less familiar
than others that are, in actual measurement, out of
sight a-head of it. Its society is still a sealed
book, its roads unfrequently travelled by leisure-
hour travellers. Diplomatists traverse it, armies
have run and rode over it ; but a positive know-
ledge of the country, an intimacy with its people,
its monuments, its arts, its present literature, is
still wanting. Its cities are little visited ; the trea-
sures of its galleries, and still more of its convents,
imperfectly known; its women still written down
ASSOCIATIONS AWAKENED. 16-5
from Gil Bias or Don Quixote, if not from the old
passion (I will not say love) and murder dramas of
the Castilian poets : the men, from the same types,
overflowing with bower and guitar gallantry ; or,
like the heroes of those same dramas, full of ex-
aggerated, though elevated sentiments of tender-
ness and even delicacy, with a ferocious sense of
honour, and a demand in their urgent natures for
powerful situations, which, not being of everv-day
occurrence, leaves the palpitating mind a prey to
the ever-ready excitement of fanaticism in all its
shapes. If we talk of a Spanish captain, ten to
one but we go back in thought to the time of the
Cid, or at least to the conquest of Granada ; if of
a Spanish 1 Don, nothing but a valet like Gil Bias
can get us up, even to the time of the fourth Philip.
As to the Donas they will always live latticed,
duenna'd, serenaded stealthily, (if they do not die
of a jealous husband or a faithless lover,) in our
fancies ; and we have good reason to be angry with
the officers who tell us (in very clever books too)
that the Spanish girls (how familiar !) quadrille at
balls, throw aside the divine mantilla, wear French
dresses, and are as cool-headed and arithmetical
166 VICINITY TO SPAIN,
as other misses. Not that we believe a word of it —
O no ! The capa y espada stories for us : long live
the old illusions, and the gallant times when every
woman was an idol and a mystery ! when cavaliers
fought by star-light — or without it, in the ruelles
of Madrid, finding living scabbards for their true
Damascus blades in the bodies of their rivals ! or,
like The Physician of his own Honour,* took the
law into their proper hands, while the single shriek,
or the groan that struggled with suffocation, gave
awful testimony of its barbarous enforcement. But,
illusions apart, what a charming writer calls the
"game flavour,'' 1 is still fresh in Spain. The people
have not the fortune, or misfortune, to know us and
others sufficiently to be spoiled by new modes and
new money: they are still proof engravings, sharp,
fresh, and distinct as an Albert Durer, or a Marc
Antonio; their virtues and their vices indigenous,
their habits and superstitions immemorial, their
dress (I speak of the people) grand, graceful, and
their own. And this character of individuality,
throwing them back into past ages, gives a fine
* El Medico de su Honra, — one of Calderone's fearful
tragedies.
ASSOCIATIONS AWAKENED. 167
antique colouring to their country and themselves.
This may be also owing, in some measure, to the
far-off and unfamiliar air which the Moorish mix-
ture gives to Spanish story. To me, at least, the
early period of the Moorish dominion seems almost
as remote as the Babylonish captivity ; and Muley
Aben Hassan and Boabdil, though co-existent with
the Medicis, as distant and foreign, compared
with the Cosmos and Lorenzos, as Abubeker:
while the court of the Moorish caliphs, and the
splendour of the third Abdalraham's reign, appear
almost to belong to the fabulous ages.
Thinking of all these things, I repeat to myself
"only these mountains between us and Spain !"
Spain ! the land of old romance, from whose abun-
dance fiction has long drawn her stores, and history
that fecundity of incident and warm glow of colour-
ing which trenches on the domain of fancy. Cor-
dova, Seville, Granada, cities from which the
sciences and knowledge brought by the Arabs
out of the Egyptian and Chaldean countries were
promulgated, and from whence the arts of peace,
of poetry and music went abroad, refining the fero-
cious spirit of the times by the magic of their
168 AND THEIR NECROMANCY.
melody, are behind that great wall. The land of
Ruy Diez and Ponce de Leon (stirring names) ;
of Lopez of the two thousand dramas, and Calde-
rone of the fifteen hundred; of Velasquez, that
great master of light and close follower of nature,
whose works have been called the theology of
painting ; and of his still greater scholar, Murillo ;
the old Asturias of Gil Bias ; the brown moun-
tains of that high-minded and moral madman Don
Quixote, — actually lie at the other side of those
lofty mountains. What a medley of recollections,
from the half-fabulous heroes of the romanceron
to the Sanchos, Scipios, and Sangrados of more mo-
dern story, are conjured up by the mere thoughts
of its vicinity ! There they go, one pushing out
the other. Valiant Cid, set spurs to Babieea
and be oft'; make way for Bravonal de Saragossa,
for the famed knight Don Bernard del Carpio,
and the illustrious Count of Castille : — come, and
gone. It is the noble Count de Cabra who passes,
and " he of the exploits," the renowned Perez del
Pulgar But no more of this. Moorish ladies
and Spanish ones, veiled beauties that glide like
shrouded stars along the twilight alameda, knights
VALLEY OF PAU. 169
and squires, dukes and duchesses, duennas bearded
and unbearded, Gitanos and Gitanas, crutched
devils, bachelors, and Algerine captives, press on
so throngingly, that all become effaced in the
broad and general character of romance which
essentially belongs to Spain, to its genius, history,
traditions, and people. Such a country stretches
out the mind, and plays with the imagination as
the sun does with a flower, opening its half-closed
leaves, and warming it into brightness.
But it is time to repose from this stirring drama,
this rapid phantasmagoria, on the present pleasant-
ness of the valley of Pau, and the rich coteaux of
Beam that open before us. Present pleasantness
is not, however, the only claim of this ancient sove-
reignty ; it puts in that of old and noble recollec-
tions also. United to France, not conquered by
it, Be'arn went along with its great Henry to join
itself to the kingdom which had become his by
the double right of lineage and of conquest : not
yielding up the independence which wise laws
emanating from wise princes had bestowed upon
it, but maintained in it by the will of its brave
son and sovereign ; and remembering the days of
VOL. I. I
170 PAU AND OLD BEARX.
its Cour Ma jour, in which the citizens of the
towns and the shepherds of the mountains had
the right of voice, and to whose investigation and
censure the chief of the state himself was open
and amenable.
Behind this valley and those coteaux, the ma-
jestic Pyrenees stretch out proudly, brightening as
we look upon them in the clear and golden light
of evening, and carrying the mind along their
nobly peaked and dentellated line, from the ocean
to the Mediterranean. The eye does not see it
all, but the imagination looks eastwards from the
great central mountains of the Hautes Pyrenees, to
the last bold point, where the Canigou interrupts
the gradual decline of the chain ; and westward till
it forgets itself in the old country of Navarre,
whose very sound is full of ancient story.
PAU. 171
CHAPTER X.
PAU — MORNING SCENE — PROCESSIONS — HENRI QUATRE —
A WORD OR TWO ABOUT HIM THE SPELL OF THE
SOUTH THE MIND AND MYSTERY OF LANDSCAPE
THE CASTLE AND ITS ORIGIN — VISIT TO IT — THE VIEW
THE TURTLE-SHELL THE NURSE'S COTTAGE THE
BIRMINGHAM QUEEN THE BENEFIT OF BEING BANNER
BEARER — ROSSINI — THE CASTLE AT EVENING — TWI-
LIGHT MAGIC.
July. — Pau. This is a sweet engaging-looking
place, to which my fancy warmed at once. Looked
out of my window just as the sky had settled itself
into broad daylight, and the market-folks were
coming in with the fresh country air on them and
the sweet garden bloom on their fruit, as if it had
dropped gently into their baskets without the im-
pression of a finger. Sky still grey, except in one
streaky corner, and the air redolent of morning
scents and humid sweetness.
This was an hour ago, and during the whole of
the intervening time I have found ample amuse-
i2
172 MORNING SCENE.
ment in the figures, passing and stationary, that
have given life to my fore-ground. At this mo-
ment, two young women, linked together affection-
ately, arms round waists in a loving, country,
Rosalind and Celia fashion, stand under my win-
dow, each with a piece of white cloth or flannel
folded something in the Italian way, and laid upon
the head so as to project from the forehead, and
throw a shade over the upper part of the face.
Two others, with baskets of fruit on their arms,
and the same folded head-dress but composed of
scarlet cloth edged with black, are chatting with
the earnestness of gossips who meet only on market
days. A cart, with oxen standing lazily, fills up
a space in the back-ground ; and women pass, some
in the quaint capulet of black, white, or scarlet,
some in the long dark mantle * covering the whole
person down to the feet, while others carry water
on their heads in double handled vessels of an
antique and graceful form. Two mules, gaily
caparisoned with Spanish saddles, led by two
• The long mantle is called capuchon; the shorter
one, which forms a hood and hangs down behind, capulet :
both are original and characteristic.
PROCESSIONS. 173
country girls, and followed by an old man with a
long staff, floating locks, and a blue bonnet, that
give him exactly the look of a Highland shepherd,
complete, with the addition of a hurrying priest
and some loitering children, a very lively and cha-
racteristic picture, framed in by the white build-
ings of a handsome square (not yet finished) which
descends gently towards the country, and lets it in
through 1 wo agreeable openings.
We have been but a few hours in Pau, and yet
have already seen three processions. But this is
Fete-Dieu time ; at others, devotion is said to be
only temperately demonstrative. In France (at
least as far as we have seen) religious shows have
neither the gorgeousness nor the muffled mystery
of similar pageants in Italy. Ostrich feathers,
palms, gold gauze, and ditto sunbeams, are less
lavishly employed ; double-gilt Madonnas in starred
robes and jewelled diadems unknown ; and if the
archangel Michael does trample on the dragon, it is
with a foot of more homely material than solid silver.
No monks look on in their antique and austere
garment, — made often a jolly one (for dress has its
moral character) by the force of a convivial face,
174 PROCESSIONS.
or a festive recollection, its broad folds taking the
waddle of a gossip's petticoat, and the crisped hair
that wreaths its circlet between the tonsured crown
and the laughing brow, almost swearing itself vine
leaves. Neither are the church processions attended
by those veiled brothers, whose eyes had better not
be eyes for those who look at them, than glare as
they seem to do through the holes cut in the linen
cloth which covers the rest of the face. Excellent
people, however ; and though recalling by their
gloomy disguise the spikes and pincers of the
Inquisition, yet themselves of the Order of Mercy,
and most meritoriously devoted to its duties.
But if there be little to create wonder here, there
is nothing to shock, nothing like the wooden colos-
sus that I once saw at Naples, towering in sacer-
dotal robes over the heads of the worshipping
multitude; or the Madonna with the face entirely
of silver, awfully surrounded by a tangle of real
hair, with which I have also had the ill luck to
come in contact.
Things as extraordinary, though more splen-
didly pantomimical, are still, it is said, got up at
Aix and other towns of Provence on the dav of
HENRI QUATRE, AND 175
the Fete-Dieu, when the inventions of King Rene,
as startling as those of barbaric paganism, are there
performed in honour of the divinity. Our pro-
cession of this morning was a simple one, very
white, and very maidenly ; and it was pleasant to
see it pass unguarded by soldiers, and unarranged
by meddling priests and meddling officers, usually
prominent features on such occasions. There was
no attempt at splendour; but a cluster of coloured
parasols and coloured dresses, exceedingly bright
and gay, hemmed in the white veils, as a border
of ranunculuses might do a parterre of lilies, with
a rich harmonious opposition of tints, and contrived
to supply its place very pleasingly.
" Le bon Henri,'' 1 born in a castle that over-
looks the town, and nursed in a cottage near it, is
to Pau what Peter the Great is to Saerdam. Here
he got the true peasant bringing up, which (to use a
gossip's phrase) made a man of him, grounding him
— not in the lore of schools or courts, but in those
feelings of fellowship with man, and of sympathy
with the demands of man's heart and the progress
of his reason, not always instilled into the breasts
of kings, though essential to the wise and just
direction of their power.
17^ A WORD OR TWO ABOUT HIM.
There is something at once homely and grand in
the character of this monarch, that takes hold of
our affections with the strong familiar loving grasp
of a child's hand : we know all about him, and love
him the better for the knowledge. He did not try
to persuade his people that he was an especial
organization, combined of something much finer
than the fine old-fashioned materials, — flesh and
blood ; he did not put embroidered seams and a
flowing wig over his errors, but rose above them
by the forty-horse power of a noble mind. The
French are faithful to his memory : le bon Henri
is a watch-word to which all hearts answer. The
peasants love him, because they consider him almost
as one of themselves, — a plain man, and a kind one,
whose warm-hearted wish would have given to each
a fowl in the marmite. The middle class love him
for his justice, manliness, and bonhommie ; the aris-
tocracy, and the young of every degree, for his
gallantry and chivalric spirit; mothers for the sake
of the ambassador's story ; ladies (they say, but it
may be scandal,) for the sake of the charming
Corisande d'Andoins and the beautiful Gabrielle;
and all, for his good sense, good faith, and good
fortune. At every fresh reign, the nation is pre-
THE SPELL OF THE SOUTH. 177
sented with a note of hand, engaging to produce a
new Henri Quatre, but it remains always promis-
sory ; and every failure is a fresh offering on the
shrine of the old idol,
" Seul roi dont le peuple ait garde la m^moire,"
as Voltaire (I believe) says in his frosty epic; or if
not Voltaire, some other lucky poet, who — rare
fortune! could set his panegyric to the music of
his conscience. And yet even the Bon Henri has
his detractors ; some one said that he was a charla-
tan. The elements of charlatanism are tact, diffi-
culties, and want of principle : he possessed the
first eminently, and was early and constantly
thrown amidst the second, — but he was honest as
well as dextrous.
Only a few quiet lions at Pau, — no roaring
ones; but such a view ! just of the kind to make
harmony in the soul, and fit it to sweet fancies.
A Tempe with a mountain river winding through
it, ineffable hills with woods, and lawns, and sunny
dwellings on them, and vei^dure such as we are
content to owe to our humid climate, but which
springs up here in spite of Reaumur. Behind this
summer scene rise up the lofty Pyrenees, spread-
i 3
178 THE MIND AND
ing out their broad arms as if to protect its placid
sweetness; and on their sapphire front floats the
soft and visionary colouring of Italy : we feel and
see the south, its atmosphere of balm, its fusion
of lights, and the purpling vapour, the crown-all
of its landscape, the secret of its mind and mys-
tery, — for has not landscape both ? And as the
fancy travels into it, does not the one feel the influ-
ence of the other ? is it not led on by the sweet
engagement which still, as it redeems its pledge,
offers a fresh one ? How often does all mean
satiety ; and to have seen all, known all, signify
weariness of spirit ! Long and lovingly does the
fancy follow the shadow which it cannot look
through ; long and lovingly does it dwell on the
visionary beauty with which the blushing light of
a southern sky softens, without entirely obscuring,
the harsher features of the earth, delighting in its
sweet uncertainty as a child does to hear the hum-
ming of the wind in a sea shell. If it were a
wooden fiddle with palpable strings, and a bow to
scrape with, he would soon find out from whence
the sound came : but the shell that has neither bow
or string ! Where lies the music that, when its
MYSTERY OF LANDSCAPE. 179
purple lips are pressed to the ear, comes to it so
rushingly ? Happily he does not know, for in the
mystery lies the magic ; if he did, it would be
thought no better than the whistle of the wind
through the key-hole.
It is the same with natural objects as with sound.
Many a time have I seen the summer-evening light
in Italy colour the vapour on the mountains with a
rose-lilac flush, that made common spots look like
enchanted ones ; and wherever it rested, raised up
half-seen temples, where the imagination went in
and worshipped.
The view and the castle comprise (I believe) all
the show things of Pau. In the evening we shall
pay a visit to the antique towers, and the cradle of
the bold Bearnais. An old castle, or other monu-
ment, chaptered in the history of a great man or a
great period, is a wonderful setting off to a country
town : an interest, and sometimes a deep one, to
those who think ; a kill-time to those who do not ;
a leaf in the sketch-book, a note in the journal, a
resource to the inn-keeper, a livelihood to the beg-
gar, and an amusement to all those who love to
renew acquaintance with old recollections, and who
180 ORIGIN OF THE CASTLE.
find pleasure in studying the moral biography of
the man, or the events of the moment, in those
memorials that attest, have witnessed, and outlive
both. Touching this castle the tradition is, that
a certain Bearnais prince, fatigued with the incur-
sions of the Saracens of Spain, forsook his royal
dwelling at Morlas, and looking about for a fit-
ting spot to build another on, found it where the
town of Pau now stands. The old possessors of
the land were the people of the valley of Ossau,
who exchanged it for the right of occupying the
high places in the hall, which was to be appropri-
ated in the new building to the sittings of the Cour
Majour. Three posts (pieux) marked the spot,
and where the middle one was placed rose the
castle, and in due time its dependant town, called
at first (as some say) Paou — the Bearnais word for
pieu ; or according to others, Pal, from the Latin
word palus, which in process of time was trans-
formed into Pau.
Monday. — Just returned from the chateau: the
exterior a happy piece of colouring, and redeems
the house-like character it has from some points,
by its flanking turrets, domineering tower — square
VISIT TO IT. 181
and mellow, — long, slanting roof, and other bits
full of character. The court, in which every stone
speaks in the old Bearnais tongue, promised some-
thing which the show apartment certainly did not
fulfil ; it was too like the governor's rooms in one
of our sea-side fortresses, to have any link with the
time or subject of its story. Our guide, a buzzing,
tiresome, blue-bottle of a man, flapped some heavy
comment in our faces every now and then, but
could tell us nothing that we cared to know: I sus-
pect that he was the accidental, not the authorized
guide, for he seemed completely abroad both on
the subject of the castle itself, and its illustrious
tenant. Indeed, I do not think it would have
been difficult to have persuaded him that le Bear-
nais (as the leaguers called Henri Quatre) was one
of Charlemagne's paladins, if not the immortal
Furioso himself, whose name is a familiar one in
the Pyrenees.
A long balcony, on which the saloon of the cradle
opens, commands all the advantages of the splendid
position which the castle rejoices in, — a position that
may boldly enter the lists with any thing in any
country, at least that I know of. I mean any thing
182 THE VIEW.
of similar or approaching character ; for one can-
not compare the vale of Pau to the bay of Naples,
nor to the lake scenery of Switzerland or Italy, nor
yet to the highly-decorated and open landscape of
Richmond Hill. It recalls Berne, or rather the
view from it ; but the tone of colouring is more
cheerful, and the long withdrawing vale that hides
itself in the mountains, has still more depth and
warmth than even the fine view from the cathedral
platform of the latter place. In its snow moun-
tains Berne has a feature which, as the sun sets, or
the twilight darkens on it, outruns the limits of
comparison ; the flow of the river, too, is fuller
and more even, — not, if I recollect right, inter-
rupted by dry and stony patches or ragged ridges
as the Gave* is in some seasons; but there is a
prodigious flush and fulness of beauty here, the
form and wooding of the coteaux leave nothing to
be wished for, and the fine mixture of southern
skies and southern vegetation with the young ver-
dure of moister latitudes is perfectly delicious.
I had expected something rougher than the
* Gave is the generic name of all mountain rivers in the
Pyrenees.
THE TURTLE-SHELL. 183
capacious turtle-shell, suspended by gold cords
and entwined with white taffeta, now decorated
with tri-colour flags, which passes for the cradle
of the good king, — wa s so literally, I believe;
for some honest Bourbonite hid it in the hard
times of the Revolution, and bringing it to day-
light when the storm was over, established its
claims to legitimacy. But its modern toilette
has made it so stupidly dressy for its subject,
that one wishes not to believe it had ever held
such a fine little fellow as, no doubt, he was;
the exhibition-room, too, is so exceedingly to day-
ish, that one almost fancies it open by mistake, and
that Henri de Bordeaux, not Henri de Navarre,
must have been its tenant. Above stairs is the cham-
ber in which the stout-hearted Jeanne (meet mother
for a brave son) sang in her hour of travail that
Bearnais ballad, or rather canticle, which she had
promised to her father;* and where Henri d'Albret,
* Mouste Dame deii cap deii poun,
Adyudat — me a d'aquest hore :
which, being un-B£arnized, means
Notre Dame du haut du pont,
Aidez moi a cette heure.
184 the nurse's cottage.
wrapping the baby in his mantle, fed it with wine,
as a nursing Faun might do an infant Bacchus.
The cottage of the real nurse is a trim thing in
a garden, touched up like the turtle-shell ; an old
farm-house near it, with brown shutters and a rusty
broken-down look, seemed to us more like what it
ouo-ht to be: but our guide insisted, — so we were
obliged to put up with whitewash and Bengal roses.
As we strolled in the Pare, a public walk of con-
siderable beauty, we met a little girl of six years
old dressed like a dancing-dog I am so fond of
children, (and the feeling I am happy to say is
reciprocal, for they generally make ready friends
with me,) that when 1 go into a public garden I
am always on the look-out for them ; and as my
eyes wandered about, they lighted on the poor
over-dressed thing, who with a premature feeling
of vanity had contrived to put itself in our way. A
paste comb, a rope of coral, bracelets and armlets of
some tarnished gilt trash, a string of pearl beads of
the true whitingVeye quality, — " a mussel-monger
would have made a better," — and a vinaigrette,
which her companions opened and shut in a tran-
sport of admiration, were all hung upon her dimi-
THE BIRMINGHAM QUEEX. 185
nutive person, which carried moreover enough of
window-blind muslin and red linen to dress out a
company of monkeys. Three little girls attended
on their Birmingham queen, watching her move-
ments with the most servile assiduity ; while she, a
very plain and vulvar child, seemed to have a tho-
rough consciousness of the eminence on which pinch-
beck and sealing-wax coral had placed her. The
companions were shabby ; one a wee thing half in
rags, but clean, and with the frock falling from
the pretty shoulders in an artless way, that might
have taught the deckers of the doll how lovely the
simplicity of childhood is, even in its meanest
attire, how folly can spoil it, and how little the
merry fairies of our homes and blessings of our
hearts stand in need of finery to set off the rounded
form of the healthy arm, or decorate the wild
ringlets, smoothed by a mother's hand into mo-
mentary sleekness.
But all this splendour was, as I afterwards
learned, a pious and judicious invention for insepa-
rably allying vanity and devotion in the poor
thing 1 s mind. She had walked in the procession,
had held a string of the white satin banner, and
186 ROSSINI.
(according to the received mode) wore the gauds
till the day was over. This child's religion was
evidently gold lace, and will probably continue so;
if she turns out a devotee, she will worship the
glittering altar-cloth ; if a sinner, the seeds were
perhaps sown to-day.
As we returned by the Place Royale, we spied
Rossini looking on enjoyingly, while two grisettes,
violently frizzed, played at four corners with as
many trinketed couriers under the shade of some
trees in the public walk. He looked, I thought,
oyster-like — not like Tilburino's oyster crossed in
love, but like a fat complacent Colchester. I
wonder what would Lavater have said to him?
Would he have discovered the lofty Semiramis
under the soft folds of his double chin ? or the
passionate Othello, in the clear blue of his large
eye? — the cold blue, I was going to say ; but those
who are familiar with its expression declare, that it
is an eye full of exquisite meaning, rich in mirth,
finesse, and mockery ; perfect as an organ of mel-
low convivial joyousness, and eminently susceptible
of being made the envoy of tender and delicate
feeling. There certainly are eyes that must be
THE CASTLE AT EVENING. 187
talked to before one can believe what a world and
all they have to say ; his may be among the num-
ber, but carelessly looked at, they seem expressive
of the most perfect and constitutional sang-froid.
Looked again at the glorious view : let no one
cavil at the word glorious until they have seen the
mountains unveiled as they are to-day, and then I
am sure they will agree in its fitness, and allow
that they have seldom seen so much warmth and
loveliness in so stately a setting. The river valley
looks within its mountain-frame like youth sporting
at the feet of indulgent and still beautiful age;
who benignantly defends its joys from harm with-
out darkening them : there is no sudden or offensive
contrast, the living and progressing richness melts
almost imperceptibly into the barren and stationary
majesty, as day shades off into the settled darkness
of night.
The castle again ; and after sunset. Even at
this dim hour the interior has nothing interesting,
nothing to help its recollections : large rooms,
some unfloored others unceiled, cold walls, and
modern windows, — but looking on such a scene !
The closet or, as they call it, boudoir of Queen
188 THE CASTLE AT EVENING.
Jeanne, has a western view, which, at this hour —
but it must be at this hour— merits a pilgrimage.
The stream of orange light — not merely colour,
but live light — which the sun has left behind it,
spreads over the whole western heavens, but di-
vided by the broad beams that still ray out from
its golden bed. The mountains to the south-east
gather shadows ; while the river, that winds slowly
through its dark and gracefully tufted banks,
catches a pale silvery shine, which, as it flows on-
wards to the west, changes to the amber of the sky.
The grass on the platform of the castle seems of a
tenderer green, the light leaves grow transparent
and tremble in the air like feathers; while between
their open line and the sunset hills, now fast shift-
ing into cloudy purple, rise two swelling uplands,
divided by a dark cleft, — one storied with trees and
houses, all castle-looking at this moment, the other
dropping down suddenly to the river; both thick-
ened with wood, black now as night, and forming
a dark belt between the light green immediately
below the eye, and the still glowing, skyey distance;
which, reddening as it fades until the golden orange
becomes pale ruby, turns trees into castles, and
TWILIGHT MAGIC. 189
raises the grey convent on the detached hill, where
sunshine may perhaps disclose a group of trees,
or a cluster of cottages. Sweet and gracious
magic ! beautiful and innocent witchcraft of the
twilight hour ! I feel while I watch your change-
ful necromancy as if a fresh spring had burst out
in my heart, and the gift of belief had come again
with it ; the charming belief in all that bright
phantasma which experience calls visions, but
which are truths — welcome and precious to the
fancy.
I could stay for hours at this window ; but the
night is fast darkening, and of all the edges which
made points of light, though dim ones, a few mi-
nutes since through the dark trees, only the long
and perfectly even line of a large building, whose
flat roof rises a little above them, is now visible ;
and that long, level, solid line, marked horizontally
on the pale sky, has a beauty in its calm regu-
larity for which, in the midst of so many more
striking objects, one is at a loss to account, unless
by the feeling of repose that it communicates to
the mind, and the image of simplicity which its
pure and unvarying form presents.
390 TWILIGHT MAGIC.
It was all dark when we passed through the
castle chambers, but not startling : nothing aids
the fancy, nothing quickens thought ; except per-
haps the staircase, or rather, the low, coved roof
of stone, elaborately carved, which runs along with
it, seeming to me (I know not why) as if it was
carrying the eye into something subterraneous,
and which became effective as night gathered on it:
so did the statue of Henri in the poor nook at the
bottom. I knew a person who could not bear to
sit in the room with a portrait, because the eyes
(she said) would follow her ; but a statue in the
darkness-visible hour, is next neighbour to a ghost.
VALLEY OF GAND. 191
CHAPTER XI.
ROAD TO LES EAUX BONNES, AND LES EAUX CHAUDES
PASTORALS SPANJSH CHILDREN LIVE STOCK AND
ROSES— THE MOUNTAINS ARUDY, AND THE VALLEY
OF OSSAU — WOMEN OF OSSAU LES EAUX BONNES
THE OLD TREE WONDERS IN THE SKY LES EAUX
CHAUDES PAU THE VISCOMTE d'oRTHE — HENRY IV.
ROYAL LOVE-LETTERS BERNADOTTE ROYAL WIS-
DOM A FAIRY TALE.
Five posts from Pau, in the heart of a mountain
hollow, are Les Eaux Bonnes. The springs,
which are used both internally and as baths, have
a high reputation, especially in pulmonary com-
plaints; as the neighbouring ones, Les Eaux
Chaudes, have for paralysis, rheumatism, &c.
Sweet scenes lead from Pau to these springs ; first
through the valley of Gand, — itself all pleasant-
ness and often beauty, and onward through scenes
whose pastoral sweetness grows as we advance into
something like romance, — the sylvan, gentle, ballad
romance of the hill-and-valley countries that lie at
192 PASTORALS.
the foot of the great mountains ; serving as thres-
holds to their high chambers, but thresholds sown
with innumerable sweets. There the hidden brook
becomes an open stream, brawling over the low
steps into which its granite bed seems artificially
hewn ; or flowing on in its pale-green purity by
the road-side, with angry chidings or sweet mur-
muring. This river gorge is beautiful ; a narrow
valley of broad shade and delightful murmur, a
road and a river — and no more, between two ranges
of lofty hills, growing gradually into mountains,
and feathered upwards with the fine branching fo-
liage of the oak ; and between their single trunks
all the pretty accidents of surface, colouring, bush,
fern, and smooth turf made to lay shadows on,
coming in deliciously. Now and then the hills
step back a little, and then the humid meadows
that find room on the river's brink, show off such
beautiful airs of freshness, that one laughs in the
heart to see them.
The world has done with Thyrsis and Amaryllis,
with iron-hearted nymphs and love-sick swains,
dialoguing their mistresses'' charms and wagering
the first yearling of the flock, the poesied ring, or
SPANISH CHILDREN. 193
pipe of amber, to sustain the pre-eminence of a
sloe-eyed Phyllis, or a sky-blue Daphne ; and no
longer takes interest in the parental counsel or just
decisions of the old shepherd Palemon, or Evander,
though he may adjudge the ivy-bound bowl, or
cunningly carved crook, with the equity of a master
in chancery.
If I were to stick them on my hills, like the nine
muses on a drop-scene, or scatter my vales all over
with their piping, listening, loving, scorning figures,
my hills would look like pasteboard, and my valleys
no better than play-house decorations. Nymphs
and swains your occupation 's o'er ! — blank as
Othello's: but console yourselves, soft worship-
pers of Pan ; there are records of your innocent
loves and lives that will last for ever, — Virgil has
vowed it, and so have others. But in this ana-
lytical, utilizing, positive age, your shrines are
deserted, and the memory of your worship laid
upon the shelf like a cracked china doll, or a
piece of tarnished tissue. A file of Spanish children
(perfect Murillos) at this moment crossing a rough
wooden-bridge, with sacks on their backs like beg-
ging friars, and hurrying (on the friars' mission) to
VOL. I. K
194 LIVE STOCK AND ROSES.
come up with us; a team of oxen drawing a light
cart, and toiling along as if it was a heavy one, knock-
ing their knees together, and their heads against
each other; an old Bearnais with floating locks,
letting them go their own way ; and a grandam at
a cottage-door — a pastoral Hecate, taking care of
an imp who has frightened a hen almost into con-
vulsions, may perhaps do as well — must indeed ;
for, except two cows who ai'e standing still in the
middle of a brook, and a huddle of pigs growing
giddy under the guidance of an eight years old
swineherd, I see no other live stock.
Roses have luckily not gone out of fashion with
pastorals ; they are still sweet at all times, and
good for many uses ; and among others, for bright-
ening up blackberry hedges as they do here, garden
hedges, with bushes for birds to warble in and
posies for the shrine of the Virgin, within their sweet
enclosures. Upon the hill above the hamlet of
Rabenac, is one of those old-fashioned mansions
which embellish the coteaux of Beam ; and before
it, one of those bright lawns that emulate the soft-
ness and beauty of true English sward ; and about
it wood; and beneath, our old gossip the river, gab-
THE MOUNTAINS. 195
bling to the trees that wash their roots in its
waters. I shall say no more of the green ascents,
for I am persuaded the fairies have something to
do with their magical freshness ; and that without
knowing the secrets of faerie-land, there would be
no giving the true elf-green and May-morning
glisten to July meadows. Some who know nothing
about these same fairies, talk of rain which has
fallen here lately, and point out the moist leaves
of the oaks that make hedge-rows or groupes, or
back into the woody depths, as proofs ; but in
such cases, proof is nothing to fancy.
Splendid catches of light on the mountains.
Honour to the mountains ! thev have been more or
less with us all the day, — gauzily veiled, but not
hidden. Regions of thought, and lifters up of all
that is not dross within us, — blessings on ye !
Forests, seas, mountains, are the everlasting tables
on which God has graven his attributes of beauty,
power, and glory. We know it, not because our
eyes admire it, but by the instant and instinctive
homage of the heart.
A fine pause at Sevignac, and a look down over
a rich fore-ground of oaks upon a valley of Italian
k2
196 VALLEY OF OSSAU.
colouring, with its dark-roofed, village-looking
town, (Arudy,) and mellow castle, and winding
river, and the soft plains, — green, warm, and
wooded, set in with the wonderfully tinted hills,
which never fail here. It is a scene calculated
to awaken delight and then compose it to medi-
tation. Beyond these plains are others, dotted
round their outermost edges with dark villages,
each with its baby cupola, or small slated steeple.
Here the Gave, dividing into many branches, makes
weedy or tufted islets, or pebbly patches, just as
the wild rivers do in the lonely, and often ragged
valleys of Italy; and the valley of Ossau dives off
into the mountains, tracing between them the dark
line that leads to Eaux Bonnes and Eaux Chaudes.
And now we are in midst of the living beauties
of Ossau; who well deserve their reputation, fine
creatures as they are, in their large white chemises
drawn in round the bottom of the throat, and form-
ing, with the exception of a short black petticoat
of coarse woollen cloth, their only garment. A
black capulet, or a white edged with black, hoods
the face slightly round, and is thrown back behind
the shoulders ; bare feet, and generally, though not
WOMEN OF OSSAU. 197
always, ankle stockings with a fringe at the end
of them ; which, with the addition of a row of gold
or gilt beads encircling the neck, or a slight black
string with a silver heart and cross pendent from
it, complete the simple dress in which the girls of
Ossau, whose fine statue-like shapes set off their
undecked garb, surprise the passing stranger, —
and not only by their general air of beauty, but by
the nobleness of their deportment, their young
queen's dignity, and sometimes by the elevated
cast and perfect regularity of their features. The
straight fall of the capulet gives a sphinx-like air
to the head, which is often strengthened by the
form of the throat and bust : they look like women
of Thebes or Memphis, or what we fancy they
may have been ; and so grand, that when they
return our gaze with a hearty laugh, as sometimes
happens, it seems a condescension more of accord
with their innocence than with their majesty. It
happens to be the hour when all, except a few who
remain in the fields tossing the hay and spreading
it, are returning from their day's labour. Among
a number who might pass for beauties, is one abso-
lutely undeniable ; such a delightful little face —
198 LES EAUX BONNES.
small, pure, radiant ; eyes deliciously opened; a fair
virgin front ; an Isis figure, tall, grand, and firm :
but the gay laugh and simple mirth of the rest, and
no idea that we are admiring her ! What the young
women of Ossau may appear to those who pass this
way to-morrow, I cannot say ; but we all received
the same impression.
After the little town of Laruns, the road
divides and forks off, — the right prong to the
Eaux Chaudes, the left to the Eaux Bonnes. Both
are strikingly placed, each in its mountain gorge ;
both melancholy, but the last approached more
smilingly, though when attained, buried in the
hollow of the lofty barriers which surround it,
shutting out all apparent issue. A rough path,*
inaccessible to wheels — perhaps to horses, but I
think not, communicates with the valley of Azun ;
but to those who cannot undertake the mountain
work, the village of Eaux Bonnes is the ultima
thule. But it is not without its watering-place
elements, — a spacious hotel, a table d'hote, public
room, evening meetings, music, cards, occasional
* Now (I am told) improved into what, in the language
of mountains, is called a road.
THE OLD TREE. 199
balls, and picturesque rides — charming ones, we
are told, though the immediate spot is blocked up
and melancholy.
Eaux Bonnes consists of fourteen or fifteen
houses, but large ones ; it makes, as I have just
now said, attempts at gaiety, — perhaps successful
ones ; and yet the malady for which its springs are
pronounced most efficacious, is perhaps, of all those
which undermine the principle of life, the most pro-
foundly melancholy, — its flattery is so sad, so hol-
low. The young smile, talk of the future, glow
with bright colours while they do so, lose nothing
of the warmth of affection in the egotism of illness,
live amongst us to the last, — caring for the world,
clinging to its interests, and wringing the hearts of
those who watch them, knowing how soon the earth,
which they still linger on so lovingly and hopingly,
will cover their poor remains.
There is a show point of view here from a hill —
I have forgotten the name, close to the village :
to-day it was set in with clouds, and sullen. The
torrent of the Valentin makes a beautiful cascade
in the romantic glen below, to which we descended
by a rough path, quite slippery from the rain that
drizzled softly on us ; so down came my chairmen at
200 WONDERS IN THE SKY.
the foot of such a venerable tree, that I heartily
forgave them for the shock. I might have perhaps
passed its knotted roots unobserved, but for the
stumble which brought me into close contact with
the convoluted fibres, that struck their grapples
sturdily into the earth, and enwreathed each other in
fine serpent-like folds. Such a tree may have sug-
gested to the sculptor the idea of the Laocoon,as the
Chinese found an alphabet in the fibres of plants,
and Christians an architecture in the green aisles of
the forest.* How often do the accidents of nature
originate thoughts which, but for their aid, might
have slept for ever. O the landscapes that I have
seen after sunset in the skies — the bright and
lonely ones ! — heaven-touched, and leaving in the
mind such images as even the beautiful earth could
not have offered to it. And once I saw an ascension,
the figure mounting upwards ; and at each side an
old man in long garments, kneeling as if on the
point of a rock that seemed joined to the earth,
the one with both arms extended, the other with
the whole body stretching after the ascending
figure; the world below with the gloom of twi-
* So we loved to fancy ; hut now we are told another
story.
LES EAUX BONNES. 201
light gathering over it — the red evening sky making
the back-ground, with the real light of heaven on
it. This seems like a dream, but my eyes saw it,
and so did other eyes ; and the clouds to whose
fantastic groupings this singular personification
was owing, remained stationary long enough to
have enabled me, had I been a painter, to have
sketched the whole; and then (supposing that I
had been a great one) I should have made a picture,
before which the wavering heart would have knelt
down worshipping.
Eaux Bonnes boasts an excellent inn, spacious
and, like the country, very Swiss, — gallery over
gallery, and the bed-rooms opening on them ; cows
milking in the court below, with a rantz des vache*
in every jingle of their sweet bells; and a long-
saloon three windows at a side, a regular cross-light
public room fitted-up for evening socialities, (this,
by the by, not a Swiss feature,) with card tables,
piano, etc. Fameuse cuisine (they say) and civil
people.— N. B. Breakfast served without a table-
cloth. Never saw this before in France, though I
have heard of it ; this sin of omission excepted, all
else was excellent.
k3
202 LES EAUX CHAUDES.
Returning from Eaux Bonnes, we found our-
selves at the point from which the road to Eaux
Chaudes dives into the mountains. The village is
approached through a sombre and majestic defile,
rocky lines boldly ledged, and a pale green torrent
tearing through it. A few dull-looking houses,
coldly placed, constitute the village; some wan
faces look out from the windows ; a small rain falls
without noise; every thing seems sad. The bluster
of a storm has life in it; but this silent, constant,
melancholy dew, seems made to moisten grave sods :
all look sick down to the children, and none look
cheerful, except two middle aged gentlewomen,
(house-letters by their look,) who stand in their
balcony simpering as the sound of wheels ap-
proaches, and anticipating the chance of new arri-
vals. But there is a gorge beyond the village in a
high tone of romance, — lone, and wild, and power-
ful, which I know I should love better than any
thing at Eaux Bonnes: we got on as far as we
could in it; but the rain thickened and the clouds
rolled down on the hills, so that we were glad to
hasten back to the inn, where we sat drying our
shawls, and looking through the mist till we were
pav. 203
heartily sick of Eaux Chaudes, whose fair-weather
face we had not an opportunity of admiring.
The rambling English seem to love Pau, and
some have chosen it for their residence. It has
many good houses in airy and agreeable — some-
times splendid positions, a few handsome hotels,
reasonable markets abundantly supplied, delicious
walks and rides, a charming climate, romance in
the mountains, and real life in the mountain baths;
with a reputation for winter gaiety, and social in-
tercourse on pleasant terms. The campagnes that
are scattered about on the hills have a charming
look about them, and tempt one to inquire if the
one in the wood, or the one on the lawn, is to be
let : what a nearer inspection may reveal, I know
not, — scrubby secrets, perhaps, or tasteless ones;
but the distant look is most inviting.
The view, however, is the court-card here : if I
lived at Pau and out of sight of it, I think I
should never willingly pass a day without visiting-
some spot from whence I could dwell on its arca-
dian beauty. Pau, which has the honour to be
the capital of the Basses Pyrenees, may be called
the vestibule of its mountains, as Berne is of the
204 viscomte d'orthe.
Oberlands, — but with this difference; that a drive
of a few hours takes you into the heart of the for-
mer, while you must often wait the pleasure of the
water-sprites of the lake of Thoun, (gruffy gentry
sometimes,) till you get sorely out of patience with
lake navigation.
There is a spacious establishment here for im-
proving the race of horses : those from Navarre
are particularly esteemed. In affections of the
lungs, they are sent like other invalids to the mine-
ral springs, with which the Pyrenees abound ; and
where they get cured, (as a man just now told us,)
" tout comme nous autres."' 1 In lieu of antiquities
and the arts, Pan boasts of having given birth to
two kings, — Henri the past, and Bernadotte the
present:* it boasts too of a noble-minded son, who
was no king, the brave Viscomte d'Orthe, who be-
ing governor of Bayonne at the time of the Saint
Bartholomew, and receiving an order from Charles
IX. for the immediate massacre of all the Hugue-
nots within his reach, returned the following la-
conic answer; — "Sire, j'ai communique la lettre
* Pau has also given birth to the celebrated mathema-
tician, Renau.
HENRI QUATRE. 205
de votre majeste a la garnison, et aux habitants de
cette ville. Je n'ai trouve que de braves soldats,
de bons citoyens, et pas un bourreau. 11
" Debourbonnez nous," prayed the zealots,
when Henri came to the throne ; and Providence
not helping them, they helped themselves, and
were all the worse for it at the long run. The
frank, ready, piquant wit of the bon Bearnais, his
naif and happy sallies, help his memory as much
as they helped his cause. He probably did not
pique himself on writing billets; but here are two
that will stand tests ; one, the well known missive
to the brave Crillon after the battle of Arques : —
" Pends toi, brave Crillon ! nous avons com-
battu a Arques, et tu ny etais pas. Adieu, brave
Crillon ! je vous aime a tort et a travers." How
like a fresh wind blowing in the face, and cheering
the very heart this is !
And this to Gabrielle : " Mes belles amours,
deux heures apres Tarriv£e de ce porteur, vous
verez ce cavalier qui vous aime fort, qu'on appelle
le roi de France et de Navarre, titres certainement
honorables, mais bien penibles ; celui de votre
amant et bien plus delicieux. Tous trois en-
206 ROYAL LOVE LETTERS.
semble sont bons, a quelque source qu'on les pu-
isse mettre, et je ne suis pas cTavis de les ceder
a personne. Je suis fort aise que vous aimiez bien
ma soeur; cest un de plus assures temoinages que
vous puissiez me rendre de votre bonne grace, que
je cheris plus que ma vie encore que je l'aime bien.
Bon jour, mon tout ! " And another, " Si j'eusse
peri dans le combat, nia derniere pensee eut ete
pour Dieu, Tavant derniere pour vous.'"*
Napoleon's early letters to Josephine have much
of this naive and heartfelt tenderness; they have
always seemed to me simply and touchingly de-
monstrative of an affectionate nature, — even of a
household heart ; the last quality probably for
which posterity will give him credit.
Of Bernadotte, all speak with respect : nothing
(it is said) can be better, kinder, or more judicious
than his conduct towards his relations here. He
does not invite them to Stockholm, or countenance
their uninvited approaches ; he does not push his
subjects out of old posts to make room for them ;
and has not yet thought of turning a prefecture
* Some of his letters to her are dated, " De nos delicieux
deserts de Fontainbleuu."
BERNADOTTE. 207
into a principality for their aggrandizement. But
he occupies himself about their welfare, even to
that of his distant and obscure petits cousins, aid-
ing, encouraging, taking a personal and minute
interest in their education, from the conviction
that (as he himself expresses it) in the present age
the only powerful protection is personal merit ;
and all this with such activity of heart and utter
absence of ostentation, and above all so much good
sense, — the moral faculty the soonest overset by
sudden elevation, that one cannot hear of it with-
out a feeling of respect.*
* I extract the following note, illustrative of his private
character, from the manuscript Monocauseries of a charm-
ing woman, (herself in a distinguished position at Pau,) who
has most kindly allowed me a peep into her interesting re-
cords : " Saint Simonien de fait, il distribue ses nombreux
bienfaits sur sa nombreusefamille, aux depens seuls de ses
propres economies; et selon la capacite" intellectuelle, se-
lon la position sociale et morale de chacun. Celui-ci est
digne Conseiller k la CourRoyale, celui-la conduit encore
sa charrue ; l'un est Baron, de par un Majorat, l'autre petit
rentier bourgeois, tout pl£b£ian demeurera; mais, il n'en
est point dont l'existence peVuniaire ne soit pas, et conve-
nablement, assured. Pour chacun de leurs enfants, toute
voie de noble et sage ambition est ouverte par une bonne
education."
208 A FAIRY TALE.
The maternal ancestors of Bernadotte have, in
common with other families of the mountains of
Cauteretz, a domestic fairy ; and the Abadies of
Adast, from whom his grandmother descended,
have a very sweet and lovely one, of whom the
following graceful and authentic tradition existed
in the archives of the hamlet of Adast long before
the birth of Bernadotte ; who, retaining a confused
recollection of the prophecy which had amused his
baby days, thought of, and wrote about it from his
Scandinavian throne with something of the super-
stition of a mountaineer. I am indebted to the
source already gratefully alluded to* for this ge-
nuine legend, which I have translated literally.
PREDICTION OF THE FAIRY ABACIA,
Fairy of the Family of the Abadies of Adast.
In the days when the fairy Urganda (one day
old, another young) had her favourites among cer-
tain knights-errant whom she especially protected ;
when the fairy Monto, foundress of the city of
Mantua, changed herself into an adder once a
* See the foregoing note.
A FAIRY TALE. 209
week, and Melusina, from the highest tower of the
ancient castle of the Lusignans, announced with
mournful and piercing shrieks their destruction
and the ruin of the royal house ; beneath a hillock
to the south of Adast, in the valley of Lavedan,
the fairy Abacia remained enchanted in a fountain,
which is now no longer one, being at this day dry.
Tradition has not told us whether she was of
the first, the second, or the third order of fairies ;
but Destiny, more powerful than them all, had
carefully assigned to each the part she had to per-
form on earth, and it was written in her immutable
decrees, that the fairy Abacia could only be disen-
chanted by a man not married, who was fasting,
and yet had eaten. How many years elapsed before
any one thus qualified appeared to release the
imprisoned fairy, tradition has also forgotten to
inform us.
However, it so happened that, towards reaping
time, the young heir of the house of Abadie of
Adast went abroad into his harvest fields, having
for his companion the heir of Vignaux and Natalaa;
and going in to the one where the fountain was with
the fairy Abacia hidden under its waters, took an
210 A FAIKY TALE.
ear of corn, and breaking a grain between his teeth,
cast it away without swallowing it.
At the same instant a young and beautiful
woman stood before him ; who, fixing on him the
look which especially belongs to fairies, said in
the sweetest of voices, "You have disenchanted
me, and ought now to take me as your wife. Do
\ou consent ?"" The young man, enamoured of
her beauty, readily agreed. " My fate (she added)
still depends on another engagement. Promise that
you will never call me 'lady, 1 or 'lady of the
water.' " He promised.
Two children, beautiful as angels, were the fruits
of this union; every thing prospered in their happy
home ; but at an epoch, of whose date there exists
no trace, it happened that the husband went up to
see his hay cut on the summit of the mountain
neighbouring to Cauteretz. As he returned in the
evening with his servants, he saw with astonishment
and anger, that the unripe grain of his fields had
been cut down and piled in shocks ; and his wrath
redoubled when on arriving at his house he learned
that it had been done by his wife's command. He
refused to listen to the gentle explanations which
A FAIRY TALE. 211
she would have given him ; and at once to humiliate
and punish her, cried out, " Lady — lady of the
water ! " The fairy instantly disappeared.
Then did he weep, groan, and utter bitter cries;
but he was destined never to behold her more.
Sometimes, when he was absent, she would come
and embrace her children, combing their hair, and
always with a golden comb.
One evening when she was alone with them, she
said, and her tears fell as she spoke, " It is owing
to your father's perjury that I have not done for
you all that my power as a fairy might have enabled
me to undertake, and now my destiny calls me into
another region ; but from thence I shall watch over
you. Love virtue, walk in the paths of honour,
and learn what I am permitted to disclose of the
secrets of futurity. Know, that one of your des-
cendants shall have much renown, and that a war-
like and illustrious nation of the north will call
him to reign over their nation. M
Having thus spoken, the fairy Abacia disap-
peared — and for ever !
212 VALLEYS OF PAU.
CHAPTER XII.
THE VALLEYS OF PAU — EARLY PRINCES OF BEARN THE
PEASANTS THEIR CHARACTER AND HABITS ALL THAT
CAN BE DONE WITH A PIG A COUNTRY WEDDING XAY
AND ITS MARKET CHATEAU D'ANGOSSE — AN HOUR
THERE ON THE GRASS — NEIGHBOURHOOD OF PAU RE-
VISITED — EVENING AND AUTUMN — THE ORFRAIE OLD
CUSTOMS AND SUPERSTITIONS — THE FOREIGN TOMB —
APRON-POCKET NOTES.
The valleys in the immediate neighbourhood of
Pau (after passing the river) are of exceeding
sweetness and beauty. There are soft, open, pas-
toral valleys, and close wooded ones watered by
cold clear streams, that filter through beds of
granite, or flow on swiftly or loiteringly through
charming meadows, and along wood-sides, that
seemed made for their sweet companionship. Some-
times the road hangs on the brow of a hill, and
catches over the fresh ridges that enclose the low-
grounds the alpine chain, glowing at the fall of
day like lapis lazuli ; at others, runs along with
VALLEYS OF PAU. 213
the wild stream through leafy solitudes or bright
lawns, every one a pastoral. Of these meadows
some are just mown, soft and even as our garden
grass-walks, and such a green ! not metallic, not
verdigris, but steeped through and through till the
depth becomes dazzling; others all flowery and
scented, waiting for the scythe ; and all enclosed
within hedge-rows chiefly of oak, (here superb,) or
wooded banks that form an irregular border en-
croaching gently on the meadows, or retreating from
them into sylvan depths. Through every open-
ing, from every height, the mountains, shadowy or
pronounced, are visible ; unless it be when the
clouds drop low, and then the rich and lovely
coteaux have it all to themselves, and make another
kind of country of it ; peaks and eagles vanish,
and vines, ploughshares, woods, and woodlarks, —
the thrush, the linnet, and the hawthorn bush,
come into play.
I have never seen a country more beautifully
ridged : one wooded line runs parallel with another,
not stiffly, but in soft and graceful undulations ;
a third and higher one stretches off* beyond ; valley
after valley lies behind them, full of silence, shade,
214 EARLY PRINCES OF BEARN.
and freshness, and as there are literally no bad bits
here, every country-house has at least a fine posi-
tion, usually a pleasant country character, and
often woods and lawns that we love to liken to our
own of England.
The early viscounts of Beam, Centulles, and
Gaston s were brave men, who made war against
the Moors cf Spain, or the Saracens of the Holy
Land; and swore, with a hand on the missal and
the cross, to preserve the rights of their subjects
sacred from all infraction. That they were inde-
pendent sovereigns is proved, by their having had
a mint at Morlas, where they coined gold ; a privi-
lege never allowed by the kings of France to their
vassals. In the feodal times, when the great, vas-
sals of the crown of France paid homage for, or dis-
puted thrones with, the monarch, Beam preserved,
under the sage and paternal government of her
princes, her laws and independence ; and of that
independence her sons are to this day honourably
proud.
Amongst those princes, local history has distin-
guished Gaston the Fourth, who fought bravely in
the Holy Land, side by side with the far-famed
PEASANTS OF BEARN. 215
Tancred; and who, according to the chroniclers of
the times, was one of those who at the siege of Jeru-
salem passed the bridge with Godefroi de Bouillon,
the Duke of Normandy, the Count of Flanders,
and two or three others of heroic name ; and
having faithfully fulfilled the duties of a Christian
knight, bathed (as was the custom with those who,
having staid their time, prepared to bend their
steps homewards) in the river Jordan, gathered
palm branches in Jericho in the garden of Abra-
sias, and then returned to Beam, and gave thanks
to God in the church of Lescars for his great
mercies.
Every thing in the Pyrenees has a character of
its own. We seem to leave France behind us as
we enter them, and the eye is immediately struck
by the sudden and singular change. The dress of
the women, their capulets and capuchons ; the
physiognomy of the young men with their Henri
Quatre ear, Jin et gaillard; the shepherd look,
pastoral and patriarchal, of the old ones ; the
southern nonchalance, Spanish-sounding language,
and warm vegetation, all combine to produce an
unexpected effect, which is increased by the tribes
216 PEASANTS OF BEARN'.
of Spaniards of all classes, whom political casualty or
the desire of gain have thrown in upon the country.
The labourers who come over from Arragon, being
harder workers than the native peasants, and con-
tent with lower wages, are sure to find employ-
ment ; their wives and children beg, and contri-
bute not a little to give a foreign and especial
character to the country.
The shepherds of Beam have the dark eyes
and the aquiline nose, as in the time of Montaigne,
but I am not sure of the "odeur de forte con-
science." The old Bearnais with his small flat
berret, blouse of blue or white, his hair cut close
on the crown, but flowing over the shoulders like
the kings of the Merovingian race, has somethino-
frank yet staid in his aspect, which becomes the
simple and pastoral character of the country, — I
speak especially of the old men, the young ones
being free gaillards, who have not yet come to
their dignity. Old age in peasant men is usually
dignified, but rarely so in peasant women, who are
oftenest bleared and full of care; while the men
contrive to set off their silver hairs with a healthy
and pleasant, though magisterial, serenity of coun-
PEASANTS OF BEARV. 217
tenance. I have seen a few respectable Roman-
nosed matrons here, stern as northern prophetesses,
but erect and active in their long black robes and
scarlet capulets ; but these lofty specimens are
scarce, while the hearty old grandads seem all of the
same upright, ruddy, patriarchal race. The young-
men are often handsome, with a marked expression
of shrewdness and simplicity; two qualities appa-
rently opposite, but frequently united : the young
women in general comely, superb in the valley
d'Ossau, pretty and coquette at Pau, expert (the
damsels of Pau, I mean,) in the tie of a madrass as
the grisettes of Bordeaux ; and, if the scandalous
chronicle says true, not at all disposed to follow
the example of that fair girl of Monasque, who
seeing that her beauty had made an impression on
the susceptible heart of Francis the First, scalded
or scorched her face till she had destroyed every
thing that could have excited his dangerous ad-
miration.
In summer, the light vest, or the blouse, (the
lone-sleeved tunic of the ancient monument,) is the
habitual dress of the Bearnais peasant. In cold
weather, the cape with its friar's hood keeps out the
VOL. i. l
218 THEIR CHARACTER AND HABITS.
biting air. It is probably the same " cape Ber-
gerique 1 " which " Sainct Martin acheta pour son
usage" hundreds of years ago. In remote places
the people are like well-preserved coins, that hand
down to us the fashions of past ages.
The Bearnais peasant is cordial, shrewd, civil,
and hospitable ; Jin et courtois, say those who do
not love him ; but those who do, tell charming
stories of his kindly welcomings and disdain of re-
muneration, his courteous, joyous, careless spirit.
Mildness and urbanity seem especially to belong
to his character ; but the rougher Bigorrais, who
piques himself on his frankness, calls him more
silken than sincere. The Bearnais peasant is story-
loving, fond of long gossipings at the cabin fire by
the resinous blaze of the pine branch, fond of the
bro'ille,* of the garbure,^ with or without the salted
leg of a fat goose, or the slice of bacon in it;
fond too of the bon vin de Jurancon, non baptise,
but sober withal, and generally (it is said) a spare
liver. His days seem to pass without care, as
" A paste of maize.
f Sort of vegetable, or rather cabbage, soup, thickened
with potatoes boiled to a paste, and seasoned with hog's lard
or bacon.
ALL THAT CAN BE DONE WITH A PIG. 21
without the power of luxurious indulgence, and
much as the shepherds did in Virgil's time, or
at least in his Eclogues. Of the sweet apple, mel-
low chestnut, and country cheese, there is no lack,
but the pig is the article of luxury ; every peasant
contrives to have one, from which he extracts as
much lard (graisse) as possible, which, if he can
afford it, he reserves to season his garbure ; the
brief luxury of the unkeepable pudding is enjoyed
at home, the rest often traded on, at least by the
poorer cottager, who contents himself with the
flesh-pot savour communicated by the coarse unc-
tuousness of the lard to the simple ground-work
of the unvarying soup. When the death is over,
comes a bustle that has something the air of a
festival ; saucisses and saucissons are multiplied,
till the wonder is how one pig could have furnished
even the tithe of such profusion ; pots of lard are
ranged in graceful uniformity under their rich
festoons ; and all this without any detriment to the
regular jambons, cotes, or petits sales, which con-
stitute the winter stock. But the chapter of pigs
might be spun out here into a volume: in the
Basses Pyrenees a considerable traffic is carried on
l 2
220 A COUNTRY WEDDING.
in the pig way, and a large portion of the hams,
distinguished by the European title of Jambonsde
Bayonne, are brought to perfection in the cabins
of Beam.
A wedding here is sometimes two or three days
of merriment to the neighbours of the bride-folks,
who keep a sort of open house during that time,
eating all day, dancing all night, and flinging
away their hard earnings as if they had not worked
for them. To the dinner each guest brings an
offering, — one a turkey, another a duck, a third a
joint of meat, to which the bride-folks add bread,
wine, lights, music, and the galette ; * the wedded
pair parade the village with a fiddler scraping before
them, and their friends following two by two, —
the bride usually doing the dismal, and the bride-
groom too sometimes. The former decorates her
hair — that is if she dares — with the blue flower of
the periwinkle; but as it is here considered as the
symbol of purity, there are some who, in the bustle
of the morning toilette, remember to forget it.
I wish I could tell of the beautiful wedding
which a lady of this country described to me with
* A cake.
A COUNTRY WEDDING. 221
such graphic touches, that I feel ashamed of not
remembering the curious ceremonial. I recollect,
however, that the bride was demanded by ambassa-
deurs, as the bridegroom's messengers were styled,
and did not appear at the first bidding; but des-
cended at last like Sara, the daughter of Raguel,
from the upper chamber. Grain, eggs, and I think
apples, were carried before her in the nuptial pro-
cession, probably as emblematic of fruitfulness
and plenty; and there was something about the
mystical number nine, the bearing of which I have
now forgotten. Various ceremonies peculiar to
the country preceded the sacred ritual ; but they
have melted into the general picture, which comes
to me like a Paul Veronese, with the crimson sa-
tin damask stomachers and capulets lined with the
same, the gold and silver trimmings and rich
stand-on-end petticoats of the bride and her sister,
(wealthy peasants of the valley of Ossau,) set off
by the grave garments of the matrons, as the gor-
geous robes of the great painter are by the dark
curtain, or sober velvet of the table covering.
There is a very vivid country gathering every
Monday in the market-place of Pau. The prin-
222 NAY AND ITS MARKET.
cipal street is a glow of colouring, of which fruit,
vegetables, flowers, and capulets form the shades ;
but the smart cook-maids, with small feet and
rakish-looking madrasses, give it too town-like an
air. A market in the Pyrenees is the same thing
to the country folks, as an Irish assize or an
English race-meeting to the provincial belles and
beaux : all go to it ; some for business, others for
pleasure, all in their best gear and best faces.
Sometimes the weekly market brings such a throng,
^f that a stranger passing through might guess it to
be at least a quarterly fair, if not a yearly one.
The little town of Nay, (a pleasant drive from
Pau,) with pointed roofs, low slated spires, and
arcades full of bustling country life, still as in the
time of Marca, gentille, agreable, et marchande,
cheated us in this way: we thought that we had
stumbled on something rare, and found that what
we fancied a festival, was merely the usual weekly
market. And a very pretty scene it was, all the
country folks in their glory, the long street full
from end to end, wicker baskets of a neat form
and workmanship ranged in rows at each side, and
abundantly stored with vegetables ; cheese, geese,
NAY AND ITS MARKET. 223
homespun cloth, and cotton shawls filled up the
intervals; and behind each lot of merchandise sat
a grave capulet, or a gayer madrass ; or perhaps
a stern matron with a dewlap cap, whose loose
white chin-border, wagging as she spoke, would
have made a grey-beard of the youngest. Un-
usual smartness visible amongst the capulets, some
running into black taffeta quilled down the seams
with black net or ribbon, downright domino hoods,
which made masqueraders of them. The men,
too, were gay : showy handkerchiefs tied loosely
round the throat, with a carelalf Young Meadows
sort of air, and as much colouring as possible
forced into their usually sober dress. Kindly
people all, men and maids; for though I had a
huge green fan, spread pent-house fashion over
my bonnet to save the necessity of holding up a
parasol, which formed certainly a most grotesque
head-dress, yet no one laughed, or seemed to think
it ridiculous.
The hill above the town and the road farther on
were full of market maidens, — two on a horse, eight
in a cart, and so on ; sometimes a pair of geese,
harnessed a-breast like Venus's swans, occupied a
224 CHATEAU d'aNGOSSE.
pack-saddle all to themselves ; while their more
plebeian brethren waddled along the high road,
running with such inveterate obstinacy under our
wheels, that it required some skill to get on without
crushing them.
The object of our morning excursion was to
visit the Chateau d'Angosse. Within two hours'
drive (or thereabouts) of Nay, we quitted 1'oads for
lanes — and green ones, full of shade and sweetness,
with tangled hedges and stumpy oaks, hazels and
walnuts, changing to sweet woodland bits of
broader shade and character. The lord of the
castle, and of the forge valley that dives off from
it, was absent ; but we picked up his housekeeper
in the market-place at Nay, who, knowing one of
our party, kindly offered to precede us with the
key of the house. She was on foot, so, to accom-
plish her hospitable purpose, sprang up on the first
spare horse that presented itself; and mounting,
like a Vendean heroine, with a foot in each stirrup,
was off at a round pace, and waiting at her open
porch en vraie chatelaine to receive us when we
arrived. The latter part of the road to the castle
is exquisite ; broad river-stretches, or gleaming
chateau jVangosse. 225
ones of infinite beauty, the ever-varying mountains,
peaked, rounded, in light, in shadow, and clustering
together to set off' the original and supreme view
from the terrace that leads to the airily detached
hamlet of St. Paul, whose small slated spire (the
common ornament of the villages here) looks down
upon the exquisite pastures, the swift and limpid
brooks, and beautiful foliage of the vale below.
A little farther on we found the lonesome
chateau ; an old-fashioned manor-house, uninte-
resting in itself, but rising boldly above the valley
and towered over by the higher mountains at
whose base it stands, and within which it is
enclosed, like the petal of a flower in its bell ;
dark and charming avenues, and mountain lawns,
and home terraces, and lemon trees and vines, and
a thousand beauties of stream and mill, and hut
and tree; but above all, such a sweet character of
solitude and peacefulness, strengthened rather than
diminished by the monotonous fall of the hammer
in the forge below. At first, all farther issue seems
sealed up by the closing of the mountains; but the
eye at length discovers, between their folds, the
opening of a narrow gorge, not accessible to a
l3
226 AN HOUR ON THE GHASS.
carriage, and described to us (for alas ! we had
not time or means to make acquaintance with it)
as full of power and beauty. Deep in the gorge,
in the heart of wild and romantic scenery, are the
principal iron- works of the Marquis d'Angosse. He
is himself now absent; but we tasted the excellent
garbure, and profited by the manifold civilities,
kindly and heartily offered, of his housekeeper;
and, as the same tone usually pervades a family,
each member imitating the model immediately
above itself, in default of other proof I should
not hesitate to judge most favourably of the high-
bred and courteous hospitality of the master, by
the mere demeanour of his servants. We passed a
charming hour or two on his terrace, Boccaccio-ing
it deliciously on the grass, and thinking how soft,
and still, and lovely its utter solitude would be of
an autumn day — a warm and mellow one, with sun-
beams but no sun, only the rays stealing out from
under the still clouds, — the purple eye-lids that
shade the fountain of their light. In winter, when
the mountains are covered with snow, and darkness
lies upon the hollow, its gloom may be too severe
and chilling ; yet I can fancy it a happy hunter's
PAU REVISITED. 227
home even then, and can see the blazing fire, the
easy chair, the tired dogs, and cheerful supper,
through the summer sunbeams.
The housekeeper had no such imaginings, —
dreary days, long nights still drearier, paths
choked up with snow, and the forgeroni ladies
exceedingly bad society. Nay still in a bustle as
we returned ; took the public road, (I mean the
great one,) and crossing the bridge, admired the
river that tears along from the mountains which
close the scene ; streams innumerable cross and
recross the valley, sometimes con amove, at others
caught and dyked, to help the purposes of berret
and hat, and, I believe, cloth making ; for the
little town of Nay is Dutch in its industry as well
as its apparent neatness, and hangs out flowers
from its wooden balconies, and Spanish honey-
suckle on its walls, very prettily.
March, 1836. — Since the above was written, we
have passed many months in a paradise a short
distance from Pau; a happy and delicious spot-
where the eye and heart made quiet jubilee. I
228 PAU REVISITED.
have verified m} sketches, and found them (to my
thinking) correct, and assuredly not flattered. It
would be no easy matter to overdo the sunset
views from our terrace, or the effect of the moon
rising between two masses of wood, — heavy and
dark as hills, but identified by their outline of
foliage, — the silent grove at evening, or the illu-
minated cupola of the Pic du Midi,* out-topping
the fine gathering of mountains that close the
southern view.
How often have I sat at fail of night, sur-
rounded by those most dear to me, spelling the
beautiful heavens, and looking across the valley at
the turreted outline of the castle, traced in dark-
ness on the pale grey sky ; while the long tent-like
roofs of Pau disappeared gradually from the land-
scape, and the air came to us loaded with the
fragrance of the thousand flowers that grew about,
and the broad-leaved catulpa showered down its
blossoms at our feet. Sometimes we heard the
gentle murmur of the Gave, as it went its way
through the valley ; sometimes a faint strain of
* The Pic tlu Midi of Pau ; every little town in the
mountain Pyrenees has its Pic du Midi, but that of Bag-
neres de Bigorre is the one par excellence.
EVENING AND AUTUMN. 229
music, or the sound of a horn, or the distant roll
of the evening drum, borne across at intervals
from the opposite town; or the mingled hum from
the village of Geloz below, or a sweet voice singing
old mournful jacobite melodies in delicious unison
with the scene and hour. There are two pines in
the landscape — the pines of Bizanos, which I
loved to look at when the summer sky was over
them, not only for their own sakes, but for the
sake too of that sweet land where beauty is most
beautiful; and then, when autumn came, how the
woods burnished into gold, and the beautiful bid
adieu to summer light how it lingered over the
Bayonne quarter! O, the red light — or the
golden one, how glorious it is !
Every day in this sweet country brings out
fresh and unexpected beauties; every accident of
light a new charm, every period its individual
aspect of sweetness or magnificence ; but autumn
is its true season of loveliness, — where is it not so?
— to my eyes at least, which better love its shaded
beauty than the ripe rich glow of summer, or
even than the budding sweetness of spring. I
love autumn as the dying love life: I feel that it
230 EVENING AND AUTUMN.
will not stay long, and dwell on it with a melan-
choly delight, in which the sense of present love
and coming loss are mingled together, giving a
touching and unspeakable grace to its simplest
beauties. There is a tenderness in its melancholy
lights, an almost magical transparency in its clear
ones, a poetry in all, which together exercise a
powerful influence over the imagination. A fare-
well is always affecting, but so sweet a one as
autumn gives is sad ; yet in its sweet sadness
there are touches of joy almost heavenly. When
I look down on the fading woods, and upwards
to the aereal mountains and the blue sky above
them, I feel as if I had nothing left of earth about
me but its affections.
It is winter now, but my pines seem to know
nothing about it, and to suit themselves to the
black sky just as well as to the blue one. I have
talked of sweet sounds — summer ones, when the
sky flushed warmth and the catulpa shed its blos-
soms ; now we have ungentle ones sometimes, and
more ungentle accompaniments. I do not know
what we call the orfraie — the bold bird that flies
against the tempest, be it ever so fierce ; but of
THE ORFRAIE. 231
all night-birds it is the most alarming. The
hootings of the owl are corn-flowers and summer
twilight to its wild and desolate cry, and the
mournful scream of the sea-gull love's messages.
The orfraie, if by itself, seems to consider its soli-
tude as something dangerous or horrible, and
shrieks like an aged woman attacked by murderers;
when two or three meet, then comes the orgie, and
these wicked revellers shout like drunken peasants
returning from a fair, or gurgle in their hollow
throats like exasperated demons ; — I say wicked
revellers, because their cry is so full of alarm and
crime ; and, if such a sound be not the index of a
cruel and ferocious nature, voice — which is the
speech of birds, is no key to their meanings : the
nightingale, instead of a sorrowing true love,
may be a rakish flirt ; and the gentle robin, whose
pretty song is so full of household love, who hops
on our window with a crumb of bread in its bill,
and bids us good-morrow with its sweet friendly
warble, an angry gad-about.
As for the orfraie, whether he be a croaking
immorality, or a screaming mentor — sanctimonious
as Colonel O'Kelly"^ parrot, I cannot take upon
232 OLD CUSTOMS
me to say ; but, such as he is, our grove has
never been without him since winter came. Some-
times we have a crew of those midnight visitors,
who generally appear with October : at first their
shrieks startled me ; but I got accustomed to the
sound, and soon found their almost human shouts
and hysterical laugh not unamusing, though
ghastly. But what a sound to hear in the lone
depths of a forest at midnight ! or from the
shrouds of a ship at sea, or from the dark waves
that follow it ; like the cry of a sea spirit prophe-
sying drearily. I have heard these wizard birds
carousing in a storm ; but they prefer fine nights,
and bully the moon and stars with most unhallowed
mockery.
Amongst the old customs still in due observance
in the Pyrenees, is one which usually takes place
on Shrove Tuesday; when, if there happens to be
a man in the country who has received a drubbing
from his wife — and put up with it, he is seized
upon by some of the sturdiest of his neighbours,
placed upon an ass with his face turned towards
the tail, and so paraded about; and, I believe,
with the additional degradation of an explanatory
AND SUPERSTITIONS.
233
paper pinned to the back or breast. The huge
Christmas log, steeped in wine, and set round
with smaller ones in the form of a cross ; the
burning brand drawn out of the bonfire on St.
John's Eve, and carefully preserved to feed the
next year's blaze ; the cross of flowers, nailed
against the door on the same holy vigil to keep
the witches out, are not forgotten in the Pyrenees :
the blessed candle is still lighted in a storm ; the
corn standing in the fields still blest on Rogation
Sunday, with prayer, incense, and holy water ;
St. Roch (or rather his representative) continues
to bestow his benediction on the cattle ; branches
that have been switched in holy water still de-
corate the cottages at Easter ; and many other
homely and harmless superstitions, which one
loves for their pleasant, old-fashioned associations
— delightful ones, I think, — are carefully kept up
in this beautiful, believing land. Another thing
that I greatly love here is, the way which the
people have of dating by their Saint's day ; and,
instead of saying it was the 5th of December, or
the 2nd of February, counting from their calendar
of holy records, — as the vigil of St. Nicholas, Le
234 OLD CUSTOMS
Chandeleur, (our Candlemas,) the day after St.
Martin, or the day of All Souls. The toll of the
angelus often brings a thanksgiving (o the lips
of the shepherd who feeds his flock on the hills,
and reminds the labourer in the fields of a pious
duty. I have seen a young woman stop in the
midst of her household cares, and breathe a short,
but I have no doubt heartfelt prayer, when she
has heard its distant sound. The invention of
this beautiful custom of tolling the angelus at
morning, noon, and evening, so that those who are
employed in their daily occupations and are far
away from churches, may join in thought with
those who kneel within them, is due, strange to
say, to Louis the Eleventh.
After the maize harvest is over, and the fields
cleared, the peasants go about to their neighbours 1
houses, offering their gratis help to egrener* it,
and sit up all night in the barn, working, singing,
drinking white wine (vin dupays), eating chestnuts,
and telling stories. This cheerful custom does not
belong to the superstitions of the people, but to
their sociable and friendly habits, of which they
* To detach the grain from the stalk by friction.
AND SUPERSTITIONS. 235
have many, and all of a rustic character and
colouring. There is a superstition, and not a
pleasing one, which I thought belonged alone to
Italy, but which I find is not unknown in the
Pyrenees. Yesterday I was warned by a peasant-
boy against taking flowers from some children
who offered them to me. It was the custom, he
told me, for any one who had a friend ill or
dying, to tie up a small nosegay and put it into
the hand, or the breast, of the sick person ; and
then offer it to the next comer, or throw it into
the first carriage they chanced to meet with. The
flowers are supposed to carry off the malady from
the person afflicted, and to give it to the one who
receives them. If another does not take the infec-
tion, the sick person cannot be cured. I had
been in many places in Italy where this belief
existed, but did not expect to find it here.
Finer things were formerly done in the way of
superstitious observances in this country of the
Pyrenees, when processions and pilgrimages were
the necessities of the day ; amongst those shone
out the mysteries of Perpignan, long (as we are
told) abolished, when the Black Penitents opened
236 THE FOREIGN TOMB.
the file, carrying the instruments of Christ's pas-
sion, and followed by various groupes exhibiting
the flagellation in the judgment-hall, the crowning
with thorns, the Ecce Homo, — which last was re-
served for the nobles, who alone appeared as
actors in it. The procession was closed by a
person clothed in a violet-coloured robe, who re-
presented our Saviour himself bearing his cross,
with the daughters of Jerusalem going before,
and a crowd of Roman soldiers, priests, torch-
bearers, and musicians following after.
And now a bit of autumn from my apron-pocket
notes. October 18th. — Turned out of the high-
road, which we had taken for the sake of a sunning,
and lighted on the sweet hamlet of Uzos,- — a real
hamlet ; clear brook, embowering trees, and the
church with its grave-yard, and a flat stone with
the English name of "Susan Day" on it. How
the foreign tomb breeds thought, and carries it to
the foreign death-bed ! Pleasant cottages, or other
country dwellings, with a sweet inhabited look, are
never wanting here; nor dun cows (a pale harmo-
nious dun) ruminating idly, or flapping oft' the flies
with their long tails. Came home through country
APRON-POCKET NOTES. 237
lanes: exquisite meadows, and nothing else, — be-
tween us and the coteaux of Ju ran con, — mowing,
last crop, and the shaven grass without a knot in
it ; smooth as velvet, green as spring, but a touch
of russet on the woods that speaks, as every thing
in autumn does, — the air, the sky, the deepening
earth, the whistle of the last bird, — to both heart
and fancy.
There is something pretty in the Spanish-sound-
ing names of the places here : the valley of Geloz,
the pines of Bizanos, the hamlet of Uzos, &c.
Autumn fills the country with Spaniards, who beg
or work — as it happens : wild and ugly people, but
always picturesque.
)9th. Donkeyed again: — give me autumn;
nothing like it in the muster roll of seasons. An
eagle sailed by my window this morning with a
proud swim, as if he lay upon the air and com-
manded it to bear him forward. A now-a-days
king, even in his ermine, is a menial in point of
dignity to those fine creatures of the sky. I did
not know that they came down to the lowlands,
but find that my cloud king is an old acquaintance
here, †” an autumn one. An unimaginable evening
as we turned homewards, finer even than the beau-
238 APRON-POECKT NOTES.
tiful morning. The Pic du Midi like a rock of
precious stone, — all ingrained sapphire. What an
altar of thanksgiving !
26th. Our marigolds are richer now than coro-
nation robes : what shades of orange and of brown
circling round and round, and concentrating all
their hues in the heart of the flower — the common
flower — that if it were a rare one would be thought
so beautiful ! We have still the velvet amaran-
th us, amber, rich burgundy purple, and ruby,
glowing like the inside of a pomegranate or the
precious stone itself; and hundreds of lilac, white,
and purple things, to me nameless. Dahlias, too,
and the fine geranium-tinted ones, (rose saumonee,)
but not the variety that I have seen in England
and other places : barberries like coral ear-drops,
and the beautiful yellow-flowering plant which
gardeners call cassia; but it is not the sweet, heavy-
scented cassia of Provence. The palma-christi
has still its grape-like bloom, rich stalk, and
broad, graceful leaf; probably the one which the
fairies choose when they set about roofing a ball-
room. Oberon and Titania might lead off, and
all their train follow, lavishly housed under the
spread of a single one. Roses — and not all Bengal
APRON-POCKET NOTES. 239
ones, verbena and jasmine in full beauty, tube-
rose and heliotrope enriching the terrace.
26th. Yesterday was a day for July to boast of;
too warm for out-of-doors rambling, and at five
o'clock like a sweet summer twilight at Naples. But
this morning, such a tempest ! At six o'clock it
awoke me, as it came rushing up from the valley
from Bayonne; sounding as if it was under the
earth and above it, and in the heavens, and the
trees, and every where. Catulpas, yesterday, full
and almost verdant ; and to-day the earth is covered
with their broad eastern-looking leaf, curiously
laid on by the chance wind, with almost the regu-
larity of a carpet pattern. A fortnight later;
what a glorious day ! soft glory, like the eyes of
an angel: I have never seen one, but can fancy
how it is. The forests still beautiful, the oaks
green and gold, but the green uppermost ; autumn
flowers still glowing, and honeysuckle in blow in
the hedges.
Companion spring bit, from the same apron-
pocket. — March 3rd. Every thing announces the
first break of spring in gentle rumours. Lin-
nets, finches, and yellowhammers ; some singing,
some hopping, all pert and happy, and bright as
240 APRON-POCKET NOTES.
the beautiful budding things that already camp
in the hedges with the pale but pretty yellow-
butterfly, and the small blue one or moth-like
brown hovering round them. Honeysuckles in
full blow in the road-side banks, and periwinkles
blue as sapphires mixing with them. Anemonies,
daffodils, narcissus, ranunculuses (double), the
autumn primrose, which has never left us in the
coldest season, violets of Parma and of the fields,
polyanthus, and heaps of other sweet, early flowers,
some of which have been in bloom for weeks past,
enrich the garden. Hedges a mosaic of violets,
wild strawberries, the beautiful green of the helle-
bore, voung honeysuckle, pied de chien, and the
fine leaf of the plant which we call serpentine, —
large, boldlv indented, and of a deep green, mar-
bled with a thread of white, and a delicate natural
varnish over all : almonds, in some places in and
almost out of blossom, in less favourable spots
only budding, and the beautiful single hyacinth —
the alabaster of the garden, in abundance ; so are
all sorts of golden eyes. Sky bright, still, and
soft ; and in the air a harmony of loving covenants
and gentle records. O for the sweet springs and
autumns of the south !
PAU TO LESTELLE. 241
CHAPTER XIII.
PAU TO LESTELLE — VILLAGES AND HAMLETS— COA RAZE
LESTELLE — SEMINARISTS AND PILGRIMS — BETHARAM
ITS NIGHT SCENES AND MORNING DECORUM HAWK
MOUNTAINS AND EAGLE ONES THE CASTLE OF LOUR-
DES — OLD STORIES A MAGNANIMOUS CHATELAIN AND
A TREACHEROUS HOST — SOFT SCENES AND HANDSOME
WOMEN — THE LOVE OF HOME.
Makch. — Left Pau after breakfast; the Gave
running along with us, and the mountains beckon-
ing us forward. To-day they are like a land of
shadows, — beautiful and vague ; and the imagi-
nation, doubting their reality, asks " Are ye there,
friends of my youth ? are ye there, who have gone
before me? 11 How often has, not only my fancy
but my heart, questioned the passing clouds, the
veiled mountains, and read sweet answers in their
soft and changeful aspects, — how often, too, sad
ones : but when the mind communes with the
skies, there is always hope, down even at the root
of its despondency ; we feel and are sustained by
it, though we do not always know that it is there.
VOL. I. M
242 PAU TO LESTELLE.
At length the vapours disperse, the dark covering
of heath becomes visible on the broad sides of the
mountains, and the lai'ge clouds cast down their
shadows in flying sheets on the variegated surface.
An open pleasant country to Lestelle, (three
posts from Pau) ; wide plains of maize mixed with
clover and meadow, and intersected or bounded
by soft woods, or lines of poplar gracefully broken,
villages and farm-houses solidly built, and trimly
roofed with slates, wooden tiles, and sometimes
thatch, and ornamented at each gable point with a
small urn, or a ball, in wood or tin ; these same
gables (one-windowed sometimes, but often win-
dovvless) front the road, and the entrance door
opens into the farm-yard, or the garden at the
side ; flowers, fruit-trees, and Italianized vines,
but not much neatness in the arrangement; the
farm-yard gate roofed at top in the old-fashioned
way, with a repetition of the ornamental urn or
ball at each end ; a stone tablet usually over the
house-door, with a cross, a flower, a star, or
perhaps an inscription on it; and the unglazed
windows often crossed with stone, as in many of
the old towns in France.
VILLAGES AND HAMLETS. 243
The villages in the plains and on the high roads
have all the same general character, differing only
in the number of their houses, and of course
in the beauty or pleasantness of their site. Some-
times a fine tree, or two or three perhaps, (oftenest
oaks) decorate a green spot between the houses;
and the oak-common is as frequent in some parts
of the country as in England, — to say nothing of
the goose-green with its rustic shade, and its home
look, and its waddling population, — the fattest I
have ever seen, but nothing (they say) to those of
Lectoure and other places, where (as in Be'arn)
their unnatural folds of grease and swollen livers
form a lucrative branch of commerce.
But it is in the green lane and the by one that
the real Bearnais hamlet niches itself; the lane
where, as the flock passes, the sheep leaves its wool
upon the briars of the hedge, and the cart (if there
be room for it) its long locks of hay on the bowery
branches. There the brook babbles, and the roof
is thatched ; there is no scutcheon over the door, no
tin ball, no wooden urn, — nothing fine but the gilt
Virgin in the chapel, and the vermilioned infant in
her arms.
m2
244 C0ARAZE.
Narrow as the track is, I must back out. of it;
and here we are again on the high road to Cau-
teretz, — cultivation and produce ; but the best part
of the picture, if one may say so, is the frame, — its
first border formed by the delicious coteaux for
which this region of the Basses Pyrenees is so
famed, and the broad outward setting by the
majestic mountains ledging backwards into more
eminent dignity.
At Coaraze more actual, — I mean immediate
beauty ; the view from the bridge very lovely, and
that from the terrace of the chateau still (and
much) better. Here Le Beamais, consigned to
the care of Susanne de Bourbon, Baron ne de Mis-
sons, his gouvernante, ran about with the peasant
children bare-headed and bare-footed, ate brown
bread,, cheese, and garlick, and acquired those
hardy habits that stood him in such good stead in
after life. Nothing remains of the antique castle
but a square tower and, it may be, a part of the
walls; the more modern chateau is, like many
others here, an ancient manor-house in aspect ;
with a side wood cresting the abrupt bank on
which it stands ; mountains in front, below a rapid
LESTELLE. 245
Gave, a mill, a bridge, and around a landscape full
of sweetness and dignity. Further on is Lestelle,
the last village of Beam ; and soon after Bigorre
opens its valleys, the soft forerunners of its high
mountain scenery. The priesthood seem to thrive
here: passed at Lestelle a flourishing seminaire:
windows turned to the road, and each, or nearly
each, with a sleek figure in it ; no apostolical heads,
or diabolical ones either, but a show of round and
rosy novices, looking as if they had a large stock
of mental reservations, and could account for the
cards in their sleeves as well as the Pere Andre
himself. Just opposite to this ecclesiastical for-
cing-house, the Gave makes a rapid sweep, and
rushing through a single arch hung with streaming
foliage, murmurs a hoarse accompaniment to the
pious reveries of the youthful seminarists and their
devout instructors, — pious or mundane, perhaps
both; palms, crowns, and the shadowing wings of
angels above ; and beneath, the court confessional,
the mitre, and the red hat.*
* The seminary no longer exists, the incipients sent
elsewhere, and the house (to which a showy church is
attached) consigned to missionaries and Spanish capucins.
246 BETHARAM,
Two or three months later, and the priests will
be effaced by the pilgrims. On a mountain near
to Lestelle is the chapel of Betharam, # to which
at certain periods of the year a pilgrimage is per-
formed, — a pilgrimage of love, devotion, and jollity ;
where, after tears and prayers, and many outward
acts of humility and contrition, comes a night
spent pell-mell in the forest ; a sort of camp-meet-
ing, where litanies are mingled with sounds of un-
hallowed revelry, and the groans, and hymns, and
murmured " Hail, Mary !" of the penitent and
the devout, rise up amidst the licentious mirth of
those who, using religion as a pretext, make orgies
of its festivals. In the wildness or the stillness
of the night, this scene, set off by the dark, flying
clouds or the red moon of an autumnal sky, must
be strange and striking: lamps glimmering through
the trees, marking false and misguiding tracks,
and seeming to lengthen distance ; fires burning on
the edge of the forest, strange figures and strange
sounds issuing from its undefined depths, must,
combined with the accidents of light and darkness,
produce a powerful effect, though one more in
* In the language of the country, beautiful shade.
ITS NIGHT SCENES, 247
unison with the mysteries of demonology, than
with the pure and vestal spirit of true religion.
Basques, Bearnais, peasants from the mountains
and valleys of Bigorre, often from those of Arragon
or Catalonia, crowd to the holy chapel to beg a
boon, or fulfil a vow, at the shrine of Our Lady
of Betharam, — the women covered with rosaries
and scapulars ; the men linked together arm-in-
arm, chaunting their litanies, as they pass along,
with most untuneable vehemence. Mary, " the
blessed amongst women, 11 is here, as in Italy, the
almost exclusive object of adoration with the people
of the mountains ; in her they worship at once the
chosen woman and the more than angel, claiming
human tenderness from the one, and from the
other divine protection.
In speaking of the night scenes of the mountain
pilgrimages, (for Betharam is but the duplicate
of Heas, &c), I have kept down my colouring,
subduing as much as possible the strong tints
which preceding sketchers, French too and eye-
witnesses, have used to paint them with. True
colours, every one tells us; but I must in justice
add that some friends of ours, who trooped it there
once with the pilgrims, found every thing as matter
248 AND MORNING DECORUM.
of fact and prosaic as well could be. Great buy-
ing of rosaries and of crucifixes, and of toilette
helps, too; neck pins and sevignes, and other orna-
ments prettily imagined though of flimsy materials ;
but no enthusiasm, pious or otherwise, — no over-
flowings. It is true they were morning visitors,
and did not wait for the inspirations even of twi-
light ; but sober common-place was the order of
the meeting, — at least while the sun shone.
A wooded valley, green and lonesome, opens at
Lestelle. As we entered it, a hawk flew above our
heads, and turning its yellow wings to the sun,
floated over the woods like an autumn leaf. Old
Vestris said beautifully of Taglioni, " Elle ne
tombe pas, elle descend ; " and certainly no artificial
movements ever emulated the tvpe which nature
has given us in her winged creation, so happily as
hers do : but my hawk lies upon the air as even
Taglioni cannot ; and its broad-winged downward
flight, in which the will seems to act almost with-
out muscular exertion, is grand and graceful beyond
all human imitation.
1 have always felt a strange and mysterious
emotion on entering into the secrets of a mountain
region, which has seemed but a little before like
HAWK MOUNTAINS, 249
something shadowy and unapproachable, a sort of
going home of the soul. A grave and melodious
voice speaks within it, welcoming strange scenes as
if they were native ones, owning them as familiar,
though we know not where they have been so, and
hailing them with something of the sweet but serious
joy with which the dead, who lived on earth, may
meet in heaven. I feel it now, as the valleys of
the Pyrenees open to receive us, and in its softest
potency ; for these are not mountains whose aspect
threatens or appals, like those which I have some-
times seen in alpine countries, and never without
an intense feeling of awe ; they are to such, as the
hawk, which still poises itself in the air above us
like a messenger of vague but beautiful promise,
is to the majestic eagle of those sterner regions.
But all is enchanted ground, the revel ground of
thought and fancy. I have long given away my
heart to mountains ; and though I may coquet it
with the decorated bowers of art, yet the deep joy,
the joy of ever-working thought, enamoured of the
spirit which haunts the one, refuses to come at the
butterfly bidding of the other.
m 3
250 AND EAGLE ONES.
The chain of low hills (the beautiful coteaux of
which I have already spoken) that rises up im-
mediately from the vale of Pau, is the first step
of the great ladder ; then comes the lower range
of the Basses Pyrenees, — my hawk mountains,
through whose avenues we ascend gradually, until
we arrive at the great eagle ones: but we are not
there yet, nor half-way scarcely ; but as we get
on they open before us, and the swift mind, out-
running the lagging body, has already made com-
panionship with the mysteries of the shadowy
region where Nature reveals herself in visions, and
all the magic that dissolves in the open sunshine of
the plains is made manifest.
The Gave is here all life and sparkle, and its
sweet and varied banks a breathing pastoral.
Overhanging it is the little town of St. Pe,
once remarkable for its monastery, founded and
richly endowed by Sance Guillaume, Duke of
Gascony, who dedicated it to God, and to St.
Peter, the prince of apostles, very Italian, with
a squandering of marble about the humble door
and windows, a ruinous-looking piazza, partly if
not entirely surrounded by arcades, with bidged
CASTLE OF LOURDES. 251
balconies full of wet rags and broken flower-
pots, and a dingy population in half-mourning,
— black and white, or all black, being the fa-
vourite dress of the country folks. It has besides
a castle, or its vestiges, and onwards a beautiful
up-and-down country, with the Gave playing at
hide and seek through low green meadows, or
along the base of the fine up-spreading woods that
cover the hills, and sometimes two thirds of the
mountains behind them, with their amplitude of
shade.
The castle of Lourdes, which guards the en-
trance to the high Pyrenees, stands on a bold
perch in a lonely pass of the valley, with a hot
town clambering up after, or rather on one side
of it, whose roofs seem to quiver in the vertical
sunbeams. The castle itself is one of the histo-
rical features of the Pyrenees ; it has been the
servant of many masters, erected (as it is believed)
by the Romans, possessed by the Counts of Bigorre,
afterwards by Simon de Montfort, and for a long
period by our Edward the Third, to whom it was
made over at the peace of Bretigny, when King
John of France (taken prisoner at the battle of
252 OLD STORIES.
Poitiers) was redeemed from captivity; and with
the English it remained, as long as they continued
to retain any part of their possessions in Aquitaine.
It was a brave garrison that of Lourdes, and
when the wars of Guyenne were renewed, kept its
stand famously ; and many a Robin Hood chevau-
chee did the merry men make from their strong-
hold, laying the whole country round under con-
tribution, as Messire Espaing pleasantly recounted
to Messire Jehan Froissart, as they journeyed
peacefully along from the city of Paumiers to the
town of Orthez.* The Abbot of Gascony, and
his four monks, who put up at the hostel of the
Angel at Montpellier, and would insist on treating
the honest Sire Bai'enger to his journey to Paris, is
worthy of Don Raphael and his co-mate Ambroise
de Lamela. To speak truth, the chieftains of
those days were little more (the ceremonies of war
apart) than hardy freebooters, with troops to
match them; who were singularly expert at run-
ning away with their enemies, and holding them
fast till the ransom came.
In the broils of Beam, Foix, Armignac, &c,
* Chroniques de Froissart.
OLD STORIES.
253
and even in the higher-pinioned wars of Aquitaine,
when those lawless bands, called free companions,
lived on plunder, and, selling their services to the
best bidder, scoured the country in the name of
one bold captain or another, this irregular mode of
warfare was tremendous work sometimes. But
the jolly garrison of Lourdes seemed to have liked
fun, at least as well as bloodshed and battery.
Here are a Gascon's reasons for loving the service
of the English king better than the French one ;
he had served the first in Aquitaine, and had
turned round to the last, — " Dieu mercy ie me
porte assez bien; mai Tauoye plus d'argent (et
aussi auoient mes gens) quande ie faisoye guerre
pour le roy d'Angleterre, que ie n'ay maintenant;
car, quand nous cheuauchios a Taventure, nous
trouuions aucuns marchans riches de Toulouze, de
Condon, de la Riolle, ou de Bergerath. Tous les
iours nous ne faillons point, que nous n'eussions
quelque bonne prise, dont nous etions frisques et
jobs."
There is a fine trait recorded in the archives of
Lourdes, — a calm and glorious one; and is not
the calm of courage more glorious than its storm ?
254 A MAGNANIMOUS CHATELAIN
more morally grand, as more detached from
passion, more rising out of the root of principle ?
— to me it seems so. I have always found some-
thing amazingly noble in that courage, which,
after having examined, counted, weighed the dan-
gers it has to face, ends by despising them — or
better still — by opposing them with a cool firmness,
nothing shaken by the perfect knowledge of their
magnitude.
When the Black Prince sojourned at Tarbes
with his fair wife, it came into his fancy to visit
the castle of Lourdes, which, from its remarkable
strength, and the facilities afforded by its frontier
position of access into Arragon and Catalonia,
ranked as a strong-hold of material consequence.
When he had well examined it, he called to him a
certain knight of his household, who had served
him loyally and in whom he had entire faith, a
native of Beam, named Pierre Ernaut, a man
expert at arms, and cousin of the famous Gaston
Phoebus Comte de Foix, and thus addressed him :
" Messire Pierre, a. ma venue en ce pays ie vous
institue et fay Chatelain et Capitaine de Lourde, et
Regard du pays de Bigorre. Or gardez tellemetle
AND A TREACHEROUS HOST. 255
chastel que vous en puissiez redre bo copte a Mon-
seigneur mon pere,et a moy." — " Monseigneur," dit
le cheualier, " volotiers." La lui en fit foy et ho-
mage : et le Prince Ten mit en possessio. And well
he merited the trust. For when war broke out again
between the kings of France and England, and two
powerful barons of Bigorre — Marnaut Barbesan,
and the Sire d'Anchin, having gone over to the
French side, seized upon the castle and city of
Tarbes, feebly defended for the king of England,
Pierre Ernaut held out bravely, nor could he in
any way be tempted to swerve from the duty to
which he had bound himself. When the Duke
d'Anjou laid siege to Lourdes, in 1374, the town
was taken and burned, but all his efforts against
the castle were fruitless. Then did the Count de
Foix, whose interest it was to obtain the favour of
the duke, send for his cousin, the captain and
chatelain of the fortress, who, seeing no means of
disobeying the mandate, set out, but with sore
misgivings, for Orthez ; where he was courteously
received and sumptuously entertained by his noble
host. After four days of feasting and revelling,
the Count de Foix, in the presence of several of
256 A MAGNANIMOUS CHATKLAIN,
his courtiers, thus addressed his guest : — " Ie vous
ay mande, Pierre ; et vousestes venu. Sachez que
Monseigneur d'Anjou me veut grand nial pour la
gamison de Lourde que vous tenez, et bie pres en
a este ma terre toute courue : si ce n'eussent este
aucuns bons amis, que n'ay eus en sa cheuauhee,
et sa parolle, et Topinion de plusieurs de sa cora-
pagnie qui me hayent, disans que ie vous soustien,
pourtant que vous estes de Beam, et ie n'ay que faire
d'auoir la malveuillance de si haut Prince, comme
est Monseigneur le Due d , Anjou. Si vous fay com-
mandment en tant que vous vous pouuez meffaire
enuers moy, et par lafoy et rhommage que vous me
deuez, que le chastel de Lourde vous me rendez. 11
Quand le Cheualier ouit cette parolle, il fut
tout ebahy, et pensa vn petit, pour savoir quelle
chose il respondroit, car il veoit bien que le Comte
de Foix parlut a certes. Toutesfois tout pense et
considere, il dit, " Monseigneur, vrayemet ie vous
dov foy et hommage, (car ie suis un poure Cheualier
de vostre sang et de vostre terre,) mais le chastel
de Lourde ne vous redraye-ie ia, vous m'auez
made, si pouuez faire de moy ce qu , il vous
plaira, ie le tiens du Roy d'Angleterre, qui m'y a
AND A TREACHEROUS HOST. 257
mis et estably, et a personne, qui soit, ie ne le
rendray, fors a. luy."
Quand le Comte de Foix ouit ceste response,
si luy mua le sang de felonnie et de courroux, et
dit en tirat hors vne dague ; " Ho, ho ! traistre, as tu
dit que non ? par ceste teste tu ne Tas dit pour
riens. Et adonc ferit il de sa dague sur le Cheua-
lier par telle facon qu'il le navra moult vilainemet
en cinq lieux, n'il n'y auoit la, Baron ne Chevalier,
qui osast aller au devant." Le Cheualier disoit
bien ; "Ha, ha! monseigneur, vous ne faites pas
gentillesse,vous rn'auez mande,et nfocciez. Toutes
fois il eut ces cinq coups dVne dague. Si com-
manda le Comte qu'il fut mis en la fosse : et y fut
mis, et y mourut, car il fut pouremet cure de ses
playes."
The brave and faithful chatelain lay dead in the
fosse ; but the castle of Lourdes was not the more
the Duke of Anjou's for that ; for Pierre Ernaut
had left a brave and unflinching brother behind
him, Jean de Beam, to whom he had entrusted the
command in his absence, and whom, (foreseeing
the treachery of the Comte de Foix,) he had made
take an oath to defend it for King Edward to the
258 SOFT SCENES, AND
last gasp. An oath gallantly kept : and the duke
finding himself repulsed at all points, raised the
siege, and turned his arms in another direction.
Some sweet preliminaries introduce Lourdes;
grey rocks — not the worse for a little severe pencil-
ing, — pleasant fields, a winding river, and, at the
opening of the valley, the castle all alone on the
rock, and the rock with its base in the green and
running water. Soft meadowy openings ; still, ver-
dant, and umbrageous; and after the grey rocks the
green valleys, and the ever-graceful and beautiful
Gave, and the soft hill-sides openly wooded, and
the sheltered crags behind.* Farther on, a pro-
fuse and vagrant vegetation; large oaks, too, and
the rocks and ruins, the fresh streams and fertile
pastures of the charming valley of Argelez — the
first and loveliest of the Lavedan, — with a wide
chain of lofty Alps darkening the distance, some
clear or streaked across with clouds, others looking
through a veil thin as the gauze of the morning.
A rich tufting of box on the rocks, and a velvet
* Guide-books talk of grottoes and a lake near to Lourdes;
but we did not see either, so I cannot say whether or not
they merit a visit.
HANDSOME WOMEN. 259
darkness in the atmosphere, as we approach the
great mountains, ineffably lovely ; the walnut and
Spanish chestnut in great growth and beauty, and
the fig and vine making fellowship with the home-
lier pear and russet.
There are days especially favourable to beauty,
when almost every woman that one meets seems
handsome ; others, when the run of ugly faces is
equally remarkable. I have observed this in pub-
lic gardens, ball rooms, &c, a hundred times, — so
no doubt have others, — without being able to
account for it ; this is beauty-day ; the women of
Lourdes looked like a picked battalion, but confi-
dent, with fierce madrasses tumbling over their
handsome eyes ; a challenging head-dress of a piece
with their faces.
What a delicious country this is, and how the
people of it must love their homes ! and when
chance sends them from it, how they must remem-
ber, like the children of Israel, their altars and
their groves by the green trees upon the high hills,
and think of the cold flowing waters of their
valleys ; and having known and loved such things,
how they must turn away mournfully from others!
260
THE LOVE OF HOME.
Yet, after all, it is not because our native land is
beautiful that we love and long for it, but because
it is our own. I once saw a man sitting by a cold
hearth in a cabin built of loose stones, through
which the wind blew where it listed, and so thinly
thatched that the rain came in at one side and
made pools on the floor. He was an Irish beggar,
and the guardian of a holy well, once much fre-
quented, but his saint having fallen into disrepute,
his trade was low : however, he had a warm corner
yet, (he said,) pointing to a part of the clay-floor
which was not positive mud ; and as to the roof,
he would put some big stones on it before the
winter came, and make it tidy. His food was
potatoes, often not overmuch of those ; but he
observed, that it was ten times better than England,
any way. England was fine, but there was no
heart in the place; by which I suppose he meant
bones, for he exclaimed, " From my own door I
can see the place where my father and my grand-
father are buried ; and though the land I live upon
belongs to a stranger, it was every foot of it our
own in King James's time." Calypso's island would
have been no recompense to this poor man for the
THE LOVE OF HOME. 261
loss of the old land, and the graves, and the holy
well which he swept round daily and garnished,
even though no pilgrims came to it. How beauti-
fully are all things ordained ! The barren moors
never brightened by flowers, the cold sea shore
where the salt weed clings to the glistening rock,
are as dear to the heart of whose first feelings they
were mute witnesses, as the paradise of Argelez to
those who have been cradled in its beauty.
262 VALLEY OF ARGELEZ.
CHAPTER XIV.
VALLEY OF ARGELEZ BEGGARS PIERREFITTE THE
GOItGE OF CAUTERETZ CAUTERETZ — WATERING-PLACE
IMPORTUNITY.
The valley of Argelez, renowned for its beauty
and beautiful as its renown, which few vaunted
things are, opens with the tower of Vidacoz, and
taking at once its full breadth, spreads into a basin,
whose only visible enti'ance is through the gorge
of Lourdes. It is a soft home-scene of peaceful
and abundant loveliness, overlaid with broad
meadows and fields of grain, and full of the soft
imagery of pastoral life, cheerful habitations,
cattle, woods, and streams ; gaining a high poeti-
cal character from the mountains which enclose it,
and a gentle and lovely one from the border hills
that, detached from the loftier heights, lapse along,
advancing their wooded sides towards the eye, or
retreating from it to shelter the low roof or the
slender spire within their rooky hollows. One
VALLEY OF ARGELEZ. 263
upland has a ruin, another a hamlet, a third a
chapel, a fourth a convent-looking house with an
old church clinging to it ; it is the Abbey of St.
Savin, or was once ; and how beautiful it is, seen
from the road ! though not like an abbey either ;
but like a lovely spot to live and die in, looking
upwards to the mountains and the sky, and down
upon the swelling fields, dressed in that air of
quiet abundance that comes out of the overflowing
of fruitfulness.
What a poet's dream it would be to live in one
of the loneliest niches of this valley, for the sake
of the hours of thought to which such a scene of
sweetness, and such a life of leisure, might give
bright spring and dear continuance; neighbouring
the mountains, angling in the stream, and nursing
oneself (as old Isaac did) with pleasant fancies and
sweet homely images, that turn out poetry when
one is not thinking about it ; while a neat hand in
the cottage on the pebbly brink savours the simple
supper, and the bright fire-light, seen through the
open door, tells of its preparation. If I was a
poor student, and a young one, instead of being
a woman, and no youth, I think I should desire
nothing better. But there are two things necessary
264
BEGGARS.
to make such a life a happy one, — a meditative
spirit and a contented mind : to which I would
add the faculty of admiration, which finds beauty
and good in objects, that to common natures seem
barren of either.
The little town of Argelez is in a charming
position, suiting its sweet climate, which is said to
be the mildest in the mountain districts, the Pisa
of the Pyrenees, where the snow (we are told)
never lies for more than a few hours. By and by
we shall return and look about us here, for the
country round is too lovely to be merely passed
through. Great beauty towards Pierrefitte and
about it ; fine undulating mountain-screens and
dark defiles, leading the mind into the land of
promise. A board, hung up at the inn gate,
informs travellers that " la mendicite est ici
deTendue;' 1 and as a proof of the respect paid to
the prohibition, a crowd of unfortunate creatures
gathered round us, each clamorously producing
some undeniable certificate of wretchedness.* But
of what may we not be vain in this world ! A
* The prohibition has (I conclude) been since enforced;
nothing visible now but little girls, who assail passers by
with nosegays.
BEGGARS.
265
poor boy in the crowd shows his maimed hand,
and has scarcely done so, when a woman pushes in
before him; and, eyeing the twisted limb with
contempt, cries out, " It is nothing ! Look at this
child in my arms : she has the legs of a goat ! "
There is no suffering in her voice, no pity, no
sense of peculiar misfortune : the tone of triumph
is unmixed. Madonna Donati scarcely threw back
" the maiden's veil 11 more proudly, than the men-
dicant her cloak ; in her earnestness to prove her
child's pre-eminence in deformity, she absolutely
forgets to beg, — her whole soul is in her glory.
I do believe there are some people for whom
sorrow is too deep a feeling ; who are (as
Shakspeare says) " incapable of their own dis-
tress :" this woman is, I think, one of them.
But beggars are in general careless thinkers :
had she been a hard-working mother, the poor
child would have hung upon her (as well it might)
like a grief; but trading beggars turn their
troubles to account, and when the shame is over —
if it ever has been there, — prefer starving liberty
and open air, to better- fed servitude and confine-
ment. Begging is, like gaming, an exciting trade :
VOL. i. n
266
BEGGARS.
the beggar turns out in the morning to play his
game of hazard, has a run of luck, follows it up
with spirit ; begs for his supper, his brisk fire,
his evening draught, as others game for them ; if
ill luck comes, abuses it, but hopes for better;
every moment is a fresh chance, every face that
approaches, a turn of the cards : like the gamester,
chance is his fountain of hope ; but unlike him, the
beggar risks nothing. Thus his spirits are kept
afloat, and if he can but raise the supplies, he is
never scrupulous about the means by which he
does so, — his own eloquence, or his child's infir-
mities, — no matter which, or what.
There are beggars whom real distress forces
from the hovel where shame would have detained
them ; of such I would be the last to speak lightly,
but the accomplished professors are fair game. A
friend of mine once accosted the celebrated asker
at the end of the Rue de Richelieu, with a brief in-
quiry as to his dinner that day, " Et le rod un
r'ognon de veau — nest cepas?" — "Pardon, Mon-
sieur; un gigot de pre sale, si je me souviens
bien : " i. e. mutton fed on salt marshes, and
reckoned peculiarly delicate.
PIERREFITTE. 267
At Pierrefitte a dark mountain separates the
gorge of Luz (often called the valley of Bareges)
from that of Cauteretz. We entered the latter by
a very steep road overhanging the border of green
meadows that lie along the brink of the river.
This is the place to talk of clear brooks and
jibing streams, flying off mockingly from the eye
that would fain keep up with their swiftness.
Higher up, the gorge narrows, and the rocky sides
are wooded down to the edge of the waters, which
go on battling their way through some fine deep-
toned scenery. Here are the climbing lawns,
bright verdure, and single trees of Switzerland ;
and the sound of the rough torrent coming up
from below, and mingling with the song of birds
in the wild bushes. Lindens and ash-trees beau-
tiful, making bowers over the boiling stream ;
but beautiful above all the green uplands, — satin,
velvet, emerald — what you will, nothing too bright
for the comparison ; dotted lightly over with huts
of rude construction, but so much more in keep-
ing with wild spots than trimmer things, and so
softly coloured. They are not habitations, but
sheds for fodder, and are usually shaded by bou-
n 2
268 GORGE OF CAUTERETZ.
quets of foliage, or half hidden by the airily
branching walnut, or the dark boughs of the oak
or chestnut tree, through which the dusky gable
or homely thatch comes peeping with its ballad of
a shepherds life written on it. There is one spot
on the left bank of the torrent, a rare one, with a
cabin on it, so shaded, so literally and deliciously
embosomed, that But I grow too young, and
besides see somebody tittering in the corner : so
mum !
There is no faculty of the mind so fluctuating
(I mean with respect to external objects) as judg-
ment, so influenced by immediately preceding
impressions. After a long stay at Paris, and a
journey through an open country, our fancies,
though pulled up by the valleys of Beam, are still
perhaps not sufficiently screwed to the comparison
pitch to estimate justly. This close defile into
which we have just passed from the wide and
fruitful valley of Argelez, seems to us almost like
a sunshiny hundredth cousin — (mind hundredth)
of the Via Mala ; this probably comes from corn-
fields and vineyards, and white daisies and yellow
butter-cups, and diminished fancies breeding weak
GORGE OF CAUTEKETZ. 269
comparisons, and so on. The sun, who does not
love the Via Mala, makes, at certain hours of the
forenoon, a scene of his own of this gorge, pouring
broad daylight into it, and burnishing up its high
bits and edges into marvellous brightness; from all
which it comes, that though deep, sometimes sterile,
and — but for its torrent — still and sullen too,
when the noon is passed ; yet there is, if I may so
express myself, a character of resignation about it,
as if it would let the sky. do as it pleased, and
make it sad or cheerful at will, — perhaps the most
opposite of all aspects to the stationary and mys-
terious gloom and brooding grandeur of that start-
ling solitude, with whose might and majesty I have
incautiously associated this comparatively gentle,
though striking and impressive scene.
Another steep and twisted ascent, called Le
Limacon, makes our springs creak ; but the road
itself is good, and by and by a better one is to be
cut through the hill, which will level matters, or at
least soften them : marble quarries at the Limacon
and sombre hollows, pines running up the moun-
tains in irregular triangles, or in dark lines multi-
plied till they become masses. After the Limacon,
270
CAUTERETZ.
the mountains lose in grandeur and in beauty, but
redeem their character as we approach Cauteretz,
looking boldly over each other's shoulders, and one
with a fine pyramidal front closing up the valley.
Higher up in the gorge we found the little town
of Cauteretz lying along the edge of a sparkling
torrent that still calls itself by the general name of
Gave. The mountains form a basin, receiving the
cluster of habitations within its hollow, and just al-
lowing room for itself and its meadows to take their
places on the brink of the river, which dashes on
without slackening its pace to inquire if the houses
have room enough. The fancy, though somewhat
repressed by the close vicinity of those natural ram-
parts, is not chilled by monotony; the folds of the
mountains are noble, multiplied, and graceful ; the
lines free and varied ; pleasant woods and green
lawnshangabout, makingbright points and lighting
up the heavy masses ; and cabins, not so elaborately
picturesque as the chaumieres of the Swiss Alps,
but all that is necessary for the scene, repose as if
by invitation on the most agreeable spots.
Cauteretz, though by no means in the highest
class of mountain scenery, is grandly guarded ;
WATEKING-PLACE IMPORTUNITY. 271
the majestic and beautiful Pic de Pegeyra, fills
up the head of the valley, making a fine natural
pyramid wooded from the base to the peak, and
presenting itself with a lordly, yet not unwinning
aspect. It is a sweet little goafs-whey sort of
place, almost at the end of its world, and with few
visitors at present, — for which we return thanks.
When we stopped at the hotel, I felt no small
alarm ; all the horrors of a watering-place came
upon me : — washer-women thrust in their list of
prices, hawkers their list of goods ; some hoped to
furnish us with cream, others pressed us to sub-
scribe to the Cercle ; one man burst into the room,
assuring us that he was the original Wauxhal, and
two capuleted matrons, who had been long prowl-
ing about the door, had all but made good their
spring, when I took leave to turn the key on their
project, and shut them out. At supper we were
serenaded by some wandering minstrels from the
old troubadour country of Toulouse, — no mean
musicians, and so we overlooked their intrusion ;
though two violins and a guitar in the half-open
door way, and a bowing child holding out her
canister, are not always the most desirable addi-
272 CAUTERETZ.
tions to the regular inn supper of roast chicken
and fricandeau, which, though probably the exact
repetition of the early dinner, is sure to be attacked
with a ready appetite, that could well dispense
with lookers on.
This morning we turned into an angle dignified
by the appellation of La Place, and the hubbub
has subsided into the repose that becomes a nook
in the mountains.
CAUTERETZ.
273
CHAPTER XV.
CAUTERETZ, CONTINUED LA PLACE DE CAUTERETZ-—
MINERAL SPRINGS CHAISES A PORTEUR — NEW MODE
OF BEGGING DEARTH OF WALKS — THE PARC CLI-
MATE COUNTRY LADS — WHY HANDSOMER THAN COUN-
TRY LASSES— HUNTERS OF THE PRESENT TIME AND
THE PAST OWLS AND WISDOM — THE BALLAD — WORDS
AND MEANINGS.
The scene which passes every day in our angle
is not without character. As soon as the sun is
abroad, the red capulets begin to move about
loiteringly, each with a small distaff, or a bundle
of worsted to sell ; they are chiefly strangers, who
come here for the benefit of the waters, bringing
with them the portable implement of industry, the
aforesaid distaff, without which a countrywoman
of the Pyrenees is rarely seen. These red hoods
are always in evidence ; but dealers from Bareges,
who come over the mountains with their light
warm shawls, dresses, &c. of the stuff especially
n 3
274 CAUTERETZ.
called bareges, and their pretty knit counterpanes,
mingle with them, showing off their wares and
tempting ramblers, already overloaded, to buy what
they afterwards do not know what to do with.
The first sunbeams see the chairmen (who ply
between the town and the baths) flying oft" with
their fragile machines and muffled ladings ; Spa-
nish shepherds, who step in from Arragon to drink
of the springs, stand about grandly, flinging their
blankets round them with the air of Velasquez
cavaliers ; madrassed girls run up and down with
cakes or coffee; herdsmen of the mountains parade
their merchandise, consisting perhaps of a dozen
small cheeses, soft and curdy, each tied up in a
clean white cloth, and suspended in a row on a
pole which the bearer carries on his shoulder. At
every moment a window opens, and a nimble-fin-
gered knitter throws her stocking over the ledge ;
or a blind is closed against the attacks of the
strengthening sun.
Sometimes the drum beats, as it were, to arms ;
but it is only the valet de ville who proclaims
an order of the mayor, a dog strayed, or a shawl
stolen. Sometimes a party full of pic-nic antici-
CAUTERETZ. 275
pations, dash by to break merry -thoughts, and if
possible hearts, in the shades of the Pont cTEs-
pagne. Perhaps the mystery of the merry-thought
may not be known here ; but I once heard a pretty
little girl say, (talking of a pic-nic,) " You can't
think how delightful it was; we had so many cold
chickens, and we did nothing but break the funny-
bone (i. e. merry-thought), to find out who should
be married first."" At mid-day windows are care-
fully shut, blinds closed, and (according to the
general custom in southern countries) light and
air carefully excluded ; a few native peasants look-
ing in their flat berrets as Highland as auld Robin
Grey, and a light sprinkling of capulets, are the
only things in movement ; but as evening draws
on, come motion, freshness, and colouring ; huge
Spanish-looking coaches arrive, stuffed with pas-
sengers, chiefly peasants or persons of the poorer
classes, who come here for a course of baths, and
bring their live-stock with them in paniers, — cocks,
hens, ducks, enough to feed their proprietors dur-
ing their stay : the same room serves for all, and
the bipeds are killed off as occasion requires.
Often four or five of these coaches arrive together,
276 LA PLACE DE CAUTEEETZ.
and discharge their cargoes under our windows.
Some are made up of poor strangers, who look
about with a cloudy, perplexed air, as if they knew
not where to go to ; others of luckier folks, who
find friends waiting for them, and are off after
a hug, and a shake-out of the garments. A few
have a parting squib with the driver, who being
probably paid for his places before hand, usually
leaves such fares to take care of themselves. But
when a berline or caleche arrives, then comes the
tug of war, and the clatter of swift feet on the pave-
ment; lodging-letters, traiteurs'-maids, and washer-
women, are all in commotion ; and if the carriage
happens to have an outside step, like the chariot of
an old-fashioned physician, the most alert instantly
jumps upon it, and thrusts in her card ; while
a dozen others pull at the tail of her petticoat, or
try to fling in theirs over her shoulder.
Pretensions considered, apartments are dearer
here than in Paris : four or five hundred francs
a month is frequently given for apartments, whicli
would not there, with the same poor and insuf-
ficient furniture, bring two. As the season lasts
only two or three months, the house proprietors
MINERAL SPRINGS. 277
consider themselves as perfectly j ustifiable in mak-
ing the most they can of their brief harvest ; with
September, all is over : in the early part of the
month the great clearance takes place, if it has not
been before-hand with it ; and those who linger on
to the end are usually quiet people of the country,
not worth plucking. A little later, the bears come
down and do the honours of the mineral springs
to each other ; and the communication with Pierre-
fitte (the only carriage one which Cauteretz has
with the world) is blocked up against wheels, and
often, if the snow lies deep, against feet also.
Those who remain, live (we are told) something as
the farmers do in the fell dales of Cumberland,
packed up with their live stock ; while the lucky
ones, who can afford to strike tents, take up their
winter-quarters at Tarbes, or Lourdes, and wait
there for the general dissolution.
Mineral springs abound here, but the popular
one is La Ralliere, (an easy walk from Cauteretz,
and higher up in the valley,) where there is a
handsome bathing establishment. At half-past
seven this morning, perhaps much earlier, the
colonnade on which the baths open was thronged
2J8 CHAISE A PORTEUR.
with invalids, all putting a good face on the mat-
ter. I did not see a crutch, nor a single visage of
the true Cheltenham tarnish, which made me re-
flect on the blessings that we derive from our East
India possessions. The waters of the Ralliere
have the reputation of working wonders in bilious
and rheumatic, as well as various other maladies;
perhaps the morning air, gentle exercise, and
healthful life led here, though they do not share
the honours of the cure with the hot springs, may
go quite as far in promoting it.
A rough straw chair upon poles, with two or
three hoops stretched over it, and covered with
a thin floor-cloth, is the usual conveyance of the
sick or the lazy ; and from the equal, alert, and
exercised step of the chairmen, becomes a most
agreeable one. Quite a coming-and-going bustle
on the road to the Ralliere this morning. In one
chair an old sibyl of most sorceress-like aspect,
wrapped in her black capuchon, the scai'let lining
slightly visible, and nothing wanting but a few
cabalistic characters on her broad forehead-cloth ;
in another, a young officer, with whom the ugly
guns seemed to have made foul work ; in a third,
MINEltAL SPRINGS. 279
a weighty dame, en papillotes, concealing her un-
arranged charms under a thick green veil; two
children squabbling in a fourth, with a girl trotting
along by their side talking unavailing reason ; and
behind, a file of bonneted nightcaps that said
nothing.
Many were on foot covered with their long-
mantles. There is something very striking in the
front view of this mantle, and very noble in the
broad unbroken fold that falls from the head to
the feet, giving a grand and mystical effect to the
distant solitary figure, which, as it is seen descend-
ing the mountain path thus enveloped, looks like a
veiled Isis just stepped down from its pedestal.
Higher up than the Ralliere is the spring of the
Mahourat; and higher still, that of Bois. The
Mahourat is particularly mild, and probably does
neither good or harm ; but this valley is so rich in
mineral springs, boasting so many, and of such
various virtues, that every malady incident to
human nature may hope to find a remedy, or at
least an alleviation within its bosom. Should the
Mahourat, or the Petit St. Sauveur, be too feeble,
there is la Ralliere, le Bois, le Cesar, les Espagnols,
280 NEW MODE OF BEGGING.
le Bruzaud, and I do not know how many more ;
in short, every meadow, every hill, has its source
or sources.
As we returned, a woman, who was making hay
in a field by the road side, threw off a few notes in
a high shrill key that made the air ring. She was
not golden-mouthed; but I thought her song might
be one of the Pyrenees, and remembering the
exquisite melody that E picked up in the
mountains, listened anxiously. But the words
soon became too distinctly audible to admit of any
romantic associations: it was neither more nor less
than a petition for a halfpenny, trolled out with a
sort of Lucy Locket sauciness ; and with a laugh
at the end of it, which showed the petitioner's
carelessness as to the success of her date obolum.
But, joke or earnest, there is (I suspect) a begging
tendency here, though perhaps no stark, arrant,
downright beggars. The children are ingenious
tormentors : this evening a little girl, sleek and
saucy as a page, asked me for a sous; L gave
her two, and she immediately cried out, " N'avez
vous pas un autre? 1 ' which, it appears, is not an
unusual translation of our ' thank you, 1 in these
DEARTH OF WALKS. 281
pastoral regions. He refused her for conscience-
sake, and off she sprang like a chamois, and joining
a group who sat decorating a bank in a hay-field
close by, clustering their gay madrasses, and mak-
ing a point somewhat brighter than a patch of
tulips, seized on another girl, and whirled her
round on the sharp edge of a steep descent, gather-
ing the wind in her full petticoat, and lavishing her
rough graces with much more effect than her un-
gainly figure, seen in its stillness, seemed capable
of producing.
If a walk in the meadows were feasible, it would
be lovely; for they are worked in with flowers of a
thousand hues, and every tuft of grass is ornate
with bright greenhouse-looking things, that tempt
the eye to run in delightfully among them ; in
which pleasant excursion it would be followed by
the feet, did not innumerable rills cross and recross
each other at every ten or twenty paces, moistening
the turf so effectually, that sometimes a dry spot
is as hard to find as in the days of Noah's dove.
Notwithstanding the inconveniences attending this
exuberant irrigation, the eye reposes with gratitude
on the beautiful verdure nourished by its abun-
282 THE PARC.
dance. It is not the uniform verdure of Switzer-
land, but the meadows have a charming freshness ;
and here and there in the hollows, or lying on the
sides of the mountains, are patches of green that
look like carpets of rich velvet spread by dewy
fingers.
The chief want here is of a greater variety of
near walks ; if a path winds along the base of a
mountain, it is probably so rugged as to be almost
impassable, at least for an invalid ; a stroll along
the banks of the wild river is still less practicable;
so that, if the road that leads towards Pierrefitte
(at this moment the favourite promenade) does not
take the fancy, or that it tires of the one that leads
to the Ralliere, there is nothing left but the Pare,
beautiful as far as it goes, and forming a sweet and
quiet selvage to the high hills; but not extensive
or varied enough to prevent the roving wish from
outstripping its limits.
In the evening, when the air is still warm and
full of melody, this walk is particularly pleasing;
the murmur of the bright and beautiful Gave
encircles every thing, filling up all pauses of sound,
yet becoming itself, from the very constancy of its
CLIMATE. 283
rush, as unperceived as stillness. The birds, with
busy or with skimming wing, work their way
homewards, each after its own fashion ; some with
uninterrupted flight, others making every bough a
resting-place; while the shadows spreading upwards
over the face of the mountains, seem to follow the
last sunbeam as it fades away from its summit.
This is a delight of a climate, — such mornings
and evenings ! fresh as the shade-loving flowers,
but without either cold or humidity ; and the
hottest hours tempered by a soft stirring air, that
revives without exciting. If climates were to be
described by flowers, as feelings, wishes, passions
are in oriental countries, I would express in sun-
loving garlands of the Persian dahlia, the rich
rose, the warm pomegranate, the glow and fervour
of the balmy south, where the Mediterranean
glitters; but for the Pyrenees I would reserve
hare-bells and violets, brook-springing daisies, and
the cool convolvulus ; and if I could find ' a little
western flower, 1 a modest grey one, with a blush of
evening red upon its leaves, I would add it to my
wreath as a symbol of twilight, usually the only
284 COUNTRY LADS, WHY HANDSOMER
charm wanting to a southern climate, but enjoyed
here in something of its protracted sweetness.
Met some very fine men to-day, superb spe-
cimens of the peasant of Bigorre, with Tarn
CShanter bonnets, and hair floating. " I saw my
Jamie's wraith" over and over again, but no
Jeannie. I take it for granted that much less of
the raw material of beauty goes to make a hand-
some man than a pretty woman, for it is remark-
able — at least in France, and I think in Italy — *
how much better looking the peasant men are,
than the women of the same class. Perhaps a
moral feeling may mingle with our view of the
subject, though we may not be aware of it. A
soldier or a labourer does not appear to us less
seemly for being somewhat weather-beaten, — indeed
it may even become him, as paleness does a nun,
or scars a warrior : but a weather-beaten, over-
worked woman, with the severities of toil and
season in her face, seems a being wronged by fate,
* I will not say England, not being sure of my ground
there ; besides, our country girls bonnet out the sun, and
except the pretty trade of hay-making, know little of field
labour.
THAN COUNTRY LASSES. 285
and forced into unnatural circumstances. Exu-
berant freshness is frequently the chief beauty of a
peasant girl : this freshness lost, as it speedily is,
the girl grows plain if she be not really and legi-
timately handsome, and we miss the womanlike
charm which mental refinement gives to the coun-
tenance and movements; while the youth redeems
his homeliness by a manly bearing, befitting his
state and habitual occupations.
Perhaps, after all, this idea may be a fanciful
one : our own reasons always appears to us reason-
able, and arguments which might probably be
unhorsed by a ' fudge, , seem to our parent hearts
screwed to the very sticking point.
We should not believe ourselves in the Pyrenees,
if we did not occasionally discuss a bear hunt.
But a bear hunt now, is not what I supposed it to
be, or what it probably is in winter time, — a gene-
ral gathering, a call of hunters starting up from
fen and fern, scouring the forests, running along
the edges of the glaciers, and making the ice ring
as their hardy footsteps pass over its crackling
surface ; but rather a solitary pleasure, sometimes
pursued by a single hunter, at others shared by
286* HUNTERS OF THE PRESENT TIME,
two or three companions in enterprise. There is
a hunter here of high renown,* who, a few days
ago, shot a magnificent animal as it came looking
for its fate down a gulley in the mountains, and
courteously threw itself in the way of the enemy, —
very polite in old Bruin, who was perhaps crossed
in love, or disappointed in politics. This moun-
tain Esau is deeply versed in all the mysteries of
his craft, and kills, skins, extracts the grease, and
turns every inch of his victim to account in a
masterly style. An old hunter, whose memory is
revered in the mountains, bequeathed to him all
his secrets, — a better legacy for a hardy peasant
than the philosopher's stone, with its entail of
dangers and anxieties.
It was in the mountains of Beam (neighbours
to Bigorre) that Henri Quatre hunted wolves; and
I still see him doffing his bonnet reverently, and
making the sign of the cross, before he departed
for the chase. Such (it is said) was his custom ;
and if so, one probably adopted by an imagination
pleased with this believing and affectionate expres-
* Since killed by the fulling of a rock, while in pursuit
of an izard.
AUD THE PAST. 287
sion of a sentiment independent of, and unchanged
by, forms. There too the famous Gaston Comte
de Foix, likened to Phcebus for his beauty,
hunted his way to paradise,* making the old moun-
tains echo to the sound of his horn ; for in those
days nobles cultivated (as we are told) the art of
blowing on this forest instrument, which belongs
to the woods as a piano does to the drawing-
room ; and Gaston himself, in his quality of poet,
lauds the performance of the great hunter Huet
de Nantes, and of his bold compeer the lord of
Montmorenci.
This splendid Gaston Phcebus, who anticipated
in his small dominions the state of Louis XIV.,
who loved the song of the menestriers, and the
chansons, rondeaux, and virelets of his clercs,
whose cheualiers and escuyers filled the halls of
the palace of Orthez with talk of love and war,
who was " doux et amoureux r ' to all Ci dames and
demoiselles," the handsomest man of the time, (as
Froissart tells us), skilled and bold in war, and
* He wrote a poem (I think it was) to prove that a
hunter's life, being an occupied and healthful one, nourished
virtuous sentiments, and so led to paradise.
288 GASTON PHCEBUS.
accomplished in the arts of peace, was not in all
things above the level of his age ; an age in which
the noblest sentiments, the most chivalrous actions,
were often warped or stained by injustice and
cruelty. Witness the murder of the high-minded
Pierre Ernaut,* and the death of that poor youth
his own son, caused, if not actually perpetrated,
by himself. It was this same Phoebus who, when
the Black Prince required homage of him for the
country of Beam, replied bravely, " Le pays de
Beam est si frache terre, qu'il n'en doit hommage
a nul seigneur du monde."
But of wolves we, in this season, hear nothing,
and even of bears but little; the izard is the
common game. It is the same animal (so say the
sportsmen) as the chamois of the Alps, but here of
a smaller growth. We called on one yesterday, a
pet nursed in a hunter's cottage ; it was not at
home, but three huge heath-cocks, scientifically
stuffed, were. There was a glass-case, too, full of
dead game ; among which the white partridge, —
that pretty bird that loses its brown colour when
the snow comes, as if nature would assist it to
* See page 257.
OWLS AND WISDOM. 289
elude the sportsman by blending its hue with the
universal one of the earth, — made a very graceful
appearance, and helped, with the aid of a' row of
sage and treacherous-looking owls, to pass off the
disappointment.
In the human countenance, the indications of
wisdom are usually thoughtfulness, elevation, and
serenity ; but in the physiognomy of the owl, the
contradictory expressions of wisdom and wicked-
ness are curiously combined. Nothing so designing
as the grave stare, or lazy wink of an owl ; and
yet there is great reflection, experience, insight, an
almost human concentration of thought, and even
(or I fancy it) power of deduction, in his counte-
nance. If an owl could be compelled, by spell or
incantation, to give his advice sincerely, it would
be, I am convinced, inestimable ; but I would not
give a straw for his friendship.
I have talked a great deal about Gaston
Phoebus as the handsomest man of his age ; a
most valorous captain, a magnificent prince, a
hunter, a poet, and — as the best and bravest some-
times were in that rough period — a cruel enemy.
A ballad, of which both the words and the music
vol. i. o
290
THE BALLAD.
are ascribed to him, and whose simple and antique
melody was no doubt often breathed from lady"^
lip in the costly chambers of Orthez, is still sung
in the cabins of Beam. There is something tender
and dolesome in the air, which suits not only the
meaning of the words, but their mere sound ; it has
a mountain character, original and belonging to
the past, the long ago. I should have taken it for
the song of the shepherd, not of a prince : its deep,
dull, well-a-day burden is to me full of expression,
and of the softest kind.
4a=s
W^ivt.tM
m — "-h»
^
-F-
g-l+"-fr
Aqueres mon - tines, Qui ta halites soun Doun-
/r
r
m
F-
l*-i> I J> f
r
3*
T~f
3
^
m
^^
dines Qui ta halites
soun Doun
^'U ' U
doun
**»- P I Jf
THE BALLAD.
291
The translation is a literal one, with which a
friend has obliged me.
Aqueres mountines
Qui ta haiites soun,
Downlines,
Qui ta haiites soun,
Doundoun.
M'empechen de bede
Mas amous oun soun,
Doundine,
Mas amous oun soun,
Doundoun.
Si sabi las bede
Ou las rencountra,
Doundine,
Ou las rencountra,
Dounda.
Passen laygietta
-('hens poii dem nega,
Doundine,
Chens poii dem nega,
Dounda.
Ces montagnes
Qui si hautes sont,
Doundines,
Qui si hautes sont,
Doundoun.
M'empechent de voir
Mes amours oil sont,
Doundine,
Mes amours oil sont,
Doundoun.
Si je savois les voir
Ou les rencontrer,
Doundine,
Ou les rencontrer,
Dounda.
Je passerai l'eau
Sans peur de me noyer,
Doundine,
Sans peur de me noyer,
Dounda.
How much does the beauty of a word depend
on its associations ! Father, mother, are thick
words, that would have small charm in their
naked sound ; yet what reverence, tenderness, and
o2
292 WOUDS AND MEANINGS.
beauty, do we find in them ! Child, too, might be
harsh, but for the thought that softens it into
something sweet and sacred. At this moment, an
infant in the street calls to its mother with such a
fond, long-drawn, and protection-claiming ma-man,
that a volume on the subject of mother love and
infant reliance could not say more.
A-propos to words. Shakspeare has melted
down old words and recoined them with new
images, effacing their original inscriptions when it
pleases him to stamp them with another; and that,
perhaps, of a meaning altogether opposite to the
original one. The word flutter belongs to a fan,
or to any other light thing easily agitated, — a gitTs
heart, a bird's wing : " when he asked me to dance,
I was all in a flutter, 11 — " little bird with fluttering
wing," — « Narcissa fluttered her fan," &c. But
when Caius Marcius flutters the Volscians in Cori-
oli, the sense of the word seems changed, and it
becomes associated, against its nature, with images
of exceeding vigour and boldness.
The French have many words of happy, but
untranslateable significance, which we beg leave to
borrow from them ; and we have some which are
WORDS AND MEANINGS. 293
unborrowable. Rejoice, is one : what a word that
is ! " Rejoice, for the kingdom of Heaven is at
hand !" Does it not go down to the very depths
of the heart ? and do not all its sleeping echoes
wake up and answer joyfully ? I said so once to
a very clever and poetical-minded man, — a French-
man, but who knew English ; but he did not feel
its glory, it did not come to him with the bright
and kindling sound with which it rings on the
familiar ear ; to him it was a mere word, with no
other meaning than its literal one. I tried to force
it down, but it would not do, — word and spirit
were both utterly unexplainable. How unjust we
are often to translators, and with what unappre-
ciating nonchalance we say — "he only translated
it;" Coleridge only translated Wallenstein !
294 SPANIARDS,
CHAPTER XVI.
CAUTERETZ, CONTINUED SPANIARDS THEIR STAGE
EFFECT CAUTERETZ ITS SHOW POINTS AND REAL
BEAUTIES THE MONNE GRANGE DE LA REINE EVE-
NING IN THE MOUNTAINS PARISIAN TROUBADOURS
THE MULETEER AND THE MOUNTAIN SHEPHERD TRA-
VELLED MEN — VANITY VERY LIKE PHILOSOPHY.
We are continually put in mind here of our vi-
cinity to Spain, by the sight of the Spanish pea-
sants who stand about idly in our Place, with their
dry little wives, as shrivelled as winter apples,
knitting; beside them. Their dress consists of a
coloured handkerchief tied round the head, with
the large Arragonian hat, slightly turned up all
round, thrown over it in a careless way that might
become better visages; a scarlet sash binding the
waist, a vest without sleeves, and stockings without
feet, kept tight by a strap that passes under the
sole of the sandal. This last article (called spar-
tille) is made of hempen cord flattened; it just
takes in the top of the toe, and forming a very
THEIR STAGE EFFECT. 295
low socket for the heel, leaves the rest of the foot
>
to which it is attached by strings tied over the
instep, entirely bare. This is the fair-weather
equipment; but should the day be cold, they lay
a sort of plaided blanket across the chest ; and
letting the ends fall over the shoulders and hang
down behind, contrive to give to this simple dra-
pery considerable stage effect.
Notwithstanding their dirt and ugliness, these
men have something very remarkable about them :
their non-conformance with the fashion of trousers,
the knee garter, tight stocking, spartille bound and
fastened with light blue tape, broad hat, and draped
blanket, give them, at a favourable distance, a
complete identity with the Don Caesars and Don
Pedros of the old comedies. Their bearing is
usually grand and disengaged, their movements
free, and even vaunting. At this moment, a man
treads and re-treads a space of a dozen paces oppo-
site to my window, who looks as if he called Gon-
salvo de Cordova his ancestor; his bold step,
sometimes springy, sometimes lounging, has nothing
of the peasant trot in it ; and though rags and
patches, tangled locks and unwashed face, may,
296 CAUTERETZ.
when this dramatic-figure is approached, disenchant
the imagination, yet, details effaced, the effect is
admirable.
Cauteretz has beauty about it, and romance, and
wildness; it has grandeur too, but not perhaps
of that high-toned and powerful character which
might qualify it for especial eminence in a country
so proudly featured as the Pyrenees. But I speak
only of the scenery immediately surrounding the
village, which may be called cheerfully majestic,
and commands from its heights, and even middle
points, some charming views. Of these, the most
remarkable is from the summit of the Monne",
which is usually ascended at night to catch the
first burst of the sun, when the coup d'ceil is said
to be magnificent. The next show point is the
Grange de la Reine, a much lower station, and
at the opposite side of the valley. The ascent,
through woods of low beech and up the steep sides
of meadows, whose velvet green disqualifies both
pen and pencil, is sometimes uncomfortably abrupt,
but always beautiful. The last pinch is what
passers-by might perhaps call perpendicular, and
moreover is carpeted with slippery turf, without
ITS REAL BEAUTIES. 297
any path or mark of previous footstep ; yet my
chairmen preferred it to a track lower down, which
seemed to me rail-road work in comparison : so up
they went cabrant on the sides of their feet, (there
being no hold for the sole,) with an agility and
steadiness not to be believed on hear-say ; and
festooning their way with the providential security
of a drunken man, who reels to the very edge of a
precipice, but rarely over it.
The Grange de la Reine takes its name from
a visit paid to it by the ex-queen of Holland,
(Hortense,) who paused long upon its beauty; so
did we, long and delightedly. Before us rose the
lofty Monne and its tall compeers, with the dark
gorge of Cauteretz lengthening to the right, and
the open valley of Argelez appearing in a light as
soft as day-break beyond it ; while to the left the
bold Pic de Peygara showed off proudly in an ad-
vantageous twilight. Looking against it as dark-
ness falls, its fine pyramidal form seems to detach
itself more firmly, its base to spread, its woods to
blacken and grow more massive ; while the green
enclosures beneath, fed by streams and dotted with
peaceful habitations, the quiet grange, the mel-
o 3
298 EVENING IN THE MOUNTAINS.
low thatch, seen dimly through the low trees, still
keep some colouring of light on their brighter
surface.
I know of nothing so beautiful as the shut of
evening in the mountain gorges, when the deepen-
ing twilight falls like the shadow of an angel's wing
upon the landscape, and the light of day still lies,
as if upon another world, on the distant opening,
as hope does on the threshold of the heart, though
darkness may be in its inner chambers. But when
is the hour in which the lights of heaven are not
beautiful ? Even the dreary or the angry ones have
beauty in them to the eye that seeks it, — a sullen
beauty, perhaps a fearful one; but how lifted above
all common-place impressions are those which the
soul receives from its contemplation.
I think I should dearly love to be transported
now and then on a warm cloud to the top of some
high mountain at the setting of the sun, or under
the pale circle of the moon, to see the golden eye
close, and hear the chimes of heaven; or at the
early day-break, when the young light seems to lift
up the darkness that hangs heavily upon it ; but
as it is, I am bound to the valleys, and there are
EVENING IN THE MOUNTAINS. 299
many sweet bits and corners here that reconcile
one to an humbler level, such as the bank on
which we now repose listening to the rough waters,
woods running upwards from the eye, ledges
projecting towards it, and the mountain rents
making wild vistas that, as the day lightens or the
evening falls upon them, assume various and mys-
tical aspects ; shadowing out a land that one might
imagine traversed by other hunters than the brown
berrets who clamber up after the bears : though
the last, perhaps, become it best, and are more
native to the rude mountains than the plumed
spectres of the gallant knights, — Counts of Bi-
gorre and chieftains of Be'arn, who still fight and
hunt in song and story over the dark Pyrenees.
Yet only in song and story, for their material pre-
sence has vanished with the chateaux and the
chatelains, to make way for the metairie and the
red capulet.
But besides its poetry, there is a general air of
cheerfulness in this quiet spot, and a character of
repose in this same cheerfulness, that has some-
thing very homely and heart-warming in it, — at
least to my fancy. For those whose fancies are,
and ought to be, less sobered down than mine
300 PARISIAN TROUBADOURS.
there are enjoyments of another kind, not only one,
but two Cercles; and gay people go to both, to
play at cards, and stimulate a waltz, if possible;
but hitherto with little success. Sometimes a soli-
tary couple start off, but if unfollowed, soon sit
down again, as if ashamed of having set a useless
example ; but the season is yet in its infancy, and
the shoals, which we hear with regret are expected
from Paris, are not yet even on the road. The
present visitors are chiefly families from Toulouse,
Bordeaux, and other nearer towns : among those
from the last-named place, is a young lady, a
dilletante nightingale of marvellous song, who
when the society of the Cercle is strictly limited
to her own intimate acquaintance, does sometimes
• - - - " take the sou!,
Aiul lap it in elysiuui."
There is no attempt at a theatre, as yet no gallant
cavalcades. Paris to the rowel of the spur, or the
cut of the amazone Of those, perhaps, here-
after ; but sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.
Once upon a time, a troop of sentimentalists
from the capital, who wished to as'.onish the wood
gods and make a sensation among their goat-
footed divinities, arrayed themselves like opera
PARISIAN TROUBADOURS.
301
troubadours, and bent their steps towards the Lac
de Gaube. The fauns, startled at the approach of
such unusual visitors, and nettled at the intrusion,
petitioned Pan ; who, applying his syrinx to his
lips, blew through it so lustily, that he soon piped
in the stray clouds that had gone pleasuring over
the hills; and, having himself some other sport
in view, handed over the mountebank minstrels to
their correction, — praying them, as a mark of
friendship to an ancient neighbour, who had never
condescended to marble floors, or slept under other
canopy than a skyey one, to rid his haunts of
such fantastic visitors. The clouds consented; and
suddenly opening their sluices, down came the
rain, soaking the light vest of taffeta and the
elastic slipper through and through ; and the pro-
fessors of the gate science, who, with their dames
de haute parage and joyeuses damoyselles, had
left Cauteretz with flying colours, in the innocent
intention of chaunting sirventes, or dialogue-ing
tensons, for the merrie people of the woods, sneaked
back again like half-drowned rats, cured probably
of the desire to seek notoriety in the forests.
I have just been told of Spaniards who walk
abroad here at night dressed, like Figaro, in vests
302 THE MULKTEKR.
of silk, with tasselled nets and silver-tagged knee
strings; handsome, too, as " the black-eyed boy,"
who, his long chapter of vicissitudes over, con-
sumes the fag-end of his life in the Avenue de
Neuilly. But I presume them to be masqueraders ;
for certainly the squalid specimens (already men-
tioned) who submit their pretensions to day-light
scrutiny, are, however effective their far off air
may be, as unlike the supple, silken, and mercu-
rial Figaro, as the humble priest who passes at
this moment is to Schiller's Grand Inquisitor.
But these scrubby folks are the poor shepherds
of the mountains ; who, however poetically their
name and calling may sound when set to Lydian
measure, are in most countries a weather-beaten,
broken-down race, afflicted with the chronic mala-
dies which the sudden changes and extremes of
season heap upon those who are exposed to their
baneful influences. It is in the fertile plains or
fat valleys that one must look for the sleek and
robust figures, models of suppleness and vigour,
whom we hear and read of. The Spanish mule-
teers are said to be a fine race. I saw a sample
at Pau, with a fringed instep and a slashed knee,
and so hung about with aigulets and other gaude-
THE MULETEliR 303
ries, that at a distance I thought he jingled, and
could have almost fancied that he had as many
bells upon him as his mule. But theirs is a joyous,
careless, varying life, and as they are always smug-
glers as well as muleteers, has something in it of
excitement and adventure that keeps the spirits
alive, and works healthfully on the body through
the medium of the mind. The accidents of such
a life, and its enjoyments, entirely unclouded by
any qualm of conscience, — for it is the custom-
house officer, not the smuggler, who is here con-
sidered as the robber, — endear it to those who
adventure in its course. If they are pinched
to-day, their sacks and wine-skins may be re-
plenished to-morrow ; if the morning rain wets
them through, they can generally reckon on good
drying ground at night : often journeying in
bands, always in movement, their versatile life
forms a striking contrast to the melancholy mono-
tony of a pastoral existence. After a hazardous or
toilsome course, the luxury of rest, of welcome, —
perhaps of home, awaits them. Or if their hearth
be distant, the warm greetings of a familiar host,
the snug shelter of an habitual corner where their
304) THE SHEPHERD.
coming is looked for, their return expected ; a
bench by the bright fire of the humble inn, a seat
by the smoking olio, kept for the well-known cus-
tomer whose peiiodical visits seldom fail, almost
supply its place.
But the poor shepherd — the real one — has no
such comfortable compensations : wrapped in his
cloak of sheep-skin, he watches his flock on the
high mountains ; and, cut off for many months
from all communication with home or friend, paces
away his hours on the solitary heath, employed
perhaps in knitting the coarse stockings meant
to constitute his winter provision. His days are
passed in the solitude of the wild, his nights in
the solitude of his hut ; he eats his cake of maize,
and swallows his draught of milk in silence, and
lies down to rest without a living soul near him to
whom he can say *' God bless you I' 1 Even the
sabbath-bell, that tolls in all within its sound to
the general act of pious acknowledgment, has no
voice in the desert ; and the prayer which we
are taught to hope will be accepted when two or
three are gathered together in the name of God,
must be pronounced alone.
TRAVELLED MEN. 305
The travelling-made-easy of the present day, has
been a greater leveller than the spelling-book : the
conscription made travellers even of the most home-
bred rustics. A peasant was formerly a man, like
Moab, who had " settled on his lees, and had not
been emptied from vessel to vessel; therefore his taste
remained in him, and his scent was not changed: 11
but of late years this simple singleness of mind
has been in most places disturbed, and in many
overturned by the influence of circumstances. My
chairmen, and all my particular friends amongst
the goatherds, &c. — those over forty, at least —
talk, some of Leipzig, others of Moscow, others
again of Cairo, as if they were Auch or Agen ;
which towns, or nearer ones, would have them-
selves been formerly called foreign parts. Half
of these men have been
- - - - " to Wulachie,
To Prussia and to Tartarie,
To Alexandrie and Turkie,"
and though oftenest simple of speech, yet they
sometimes show off a little of the conceitedness of
travelled folks. This evening, a beautiful one, as
I sat on a dry stone Lalla Rookh-ing it, with my
306 VANITY VERY
sure-footed bearers stretched on the turf near me
telling stories, (tales of the bivouac, all tobacco
and brandy ; not a thought in them of maize or
millet, or the goat's milk of the mountains,) one, a
greater parleyer than the rest, and who, according
to his own account, had fought under all skies,
regretted his "education rnanquee."" — "With my
talents (he added) and advantages, if I had learned
to read and write, I should have done great things.'"
I thought mes talents was pronounced with an
emphasis of satisfaction that outweighed the regret;
perhaps he was not displeased to have an excuse
for not being (though forty-eight) either prince or
minister; it was said, with an air of conviction, that
he might probably have been one or the other but
for the omission of the Dilworth, or whatever may
be equivalent to it hereabouts. For screwing up
the spirits to the true concert pitch, there are few
things like vanity ; I do not mean that morbid and
craving vanity which engenders envy and all other
evil things, but the good-humoured vanity that can
not be affronted, and by the bare help of which I
have seen people make themselves perfectly happy,
without possessing a single one of those ingredients
MKE PHILOSOPHY. 307
— facility excepted — which are usually considered
as essential to happiness.
But though the hope of advancement, on literary
grounds, had gone out of my chairman's heart in
as far as he was himself concerned, yet it was only
to settle itself a little farther off; and I respected
him for the sentiment, and the hearty honest
warmth with which it was expressed. His chil-
dren (he said) should have the helps that he had
wanted ; he had a demoiselle* of ten years old, who
wrote like a clerk ; and "a tender juvenal, a most
acute juvenal" of eight, who would be fit some
time or another to fill the place of " Mister muster-
master general, 1-1 or any thing else, clerical or laical,
that might fall in his way. The past he knew was
irremediable; but throwing his own personality
into that of his children, he rubbed his hands and
started for the future with a vigour that will die
game, and might give many a lesson in its onward
journey.
* The higher classes of French always say, ma fille, ma
femme; which familiar appellations the humbler ones con-
vert into demoiselle and ipouse, as being' loftier perhaps.
308 HAWKERS,
CHAPTER XVII.
CAUTERETZ, CONTINUED HAWKERS, LITERARY AND
OTHERWISE BOOKS OF THE DAY — ABUSE OF TALENT
THE SEASON OPENED THE EASY TOILETTE— CLI-
MATE MUSIC AND ITS ILLUSIONS THE VIOLIN ALL
THAT MAY BE DONE WITH IT THE POETRY OF NAMES
— COMPENSATIONS SUPERSTITION ITS COMFORTS
AND ITS DANGERS — LONG LIVE THE FAIRIES.
This morning, as I sat reverie-ing in my corner,
with a book which I dearly love open before me, in
walked a hawker from Bareges; and before I was
aware of her presence, had opened a bale as large
as the lord chancellor's woolsack, and was already
in the act of arranging her shawls on the backs of
the chairs, with the borders skilfully put together
so as to look brighter and broader than they really
were. There are but few shops here, and those
few meanly and meagrely furnished, but a perpe-
tual traffic is carried on by pedlars from Bareges,
Bayonne, Toulouse, &c, who hawk their wares
LITERARY AND OTHERWISE. 309
from house to house ; and as the entrance door is
never closed, walk up stairs, and let themselves in
without ceremony.
Yesterday, a pedlar paraded his pack with a Cor-
neille, a Moliere, a Pascal, and a Montesquieu in
it, but found no sale. The established classics of
French literature are like old stock-plays — still on
the list, though cobwebbed for want of handling ;
for who will read the one or assist at the other,
when the annals of the guillotine, or of the crimes
that lead to it, are published every day and acted
every night for their edification ; — all wreathed,
too, and decorated, like the veiled skeleton at
the Egyptian feast, with flowers whose very bright-
ness has death in it. To offer such homely food
to minds accustomed to violent excitement, would
be like setting a household loaf — suppose it even of
the best wheaten flour — before one who had been
living on cayenne broils and mulagatawnee, and
expect that he would feast upon it.
For myself, I roust say, that my palate being
but indifferently paved, I never could reconcile it
to such stimulating food ; nor do I ever stumble
on one of those records of misused powers without
olO ABUSE OF TALENT.
feeling something deeper even than regret. If, in
a reading country the great spring by which the
passions are excited the judgment influenced, the
character strengthened or perverted, and that bias
given to the mind which decides its future action,
be the press, — and who can doubt it ? — what a
national calamity must such a literature as its pre-
sent one be to France ! — a literature that revels in
the anatomy of vice, and whose inspiration is a
Bacchante that rushes on with blood-shot eyes and
hideous songs, in which vice-inciting words are set to
deadly music ; a literature which makes the neces-
sity of emotion (fe besoin d'etre emu) a paramount
and habitual feeling, and indisposes the mind for
the reception of any impressions but those which,
neglecting its higher faculties, its interior powers,
address themselves to its weaknesses through the
medium of the senses.
But the bane will no doubt produce the anti-
dote; and this livid literature, the offspring of
hardihood and a demoralized imagination rather
than of genius, but in which there is usually
enough of the latter to make us lament its per-
version, and sometimes a melancholy exuberance
ABUSE OF TALENT. 311
whose very splendour shocks, will, in all likelihood
and before long, die a natural death. Whenever
morals are grossly outraged, there is, sooner or
later, but infallibly, a re-action, general, severe,
and decisive ; for the moral feeling, however it
may be drugged into temporary apathy, is never
extinct in a great population ; and works that have
no other end but that of creating artificial excite-
ment, which neither stand upon the base of use-
fulness or of moral beauty, which treat religion as
a political invention and virtue as an expedient,
beating down all holy feelings, all consoling hopes,
all beautiful reliances, by the broad diction of
vice, cannot long retain their influence. Their
very excitement must in the end produce the
languor of satiety, as their uniform colouring and
tendence must at length efface the character of
individuality.
The host of successful imitators germinated by
the popularity of certain great writers in this way,
proves how much more easy it is to duplicate
exaggeration, than to approach the simplicity of
nature. There are few writers who have dab-
bled in the present style of representative ro-
312 ABUSE OF TALENT.
mance, who cannot work up a horror or dramatize
a crime, if not with the power of their masters, at
least currently- Factitious feeling, like the nose
of a mask, offers its tempting protuberance to all
who are inclined to seize it ; and depravity put
into action, presents immense facilities to those who
are not ashamed to speculate on the evil propen-
sities of man ; who, appealing to his worst feelings
and worst passions, dare to open the scent of vice,
and setting vacillating minds upon it, have the
callous courage to rejoice at seeing them intoxi-
cated by its vapour. But that men of genius
should abuse the great trust by whose investiture
they have been made mighty above their fellows,
and forget the awful responsibility which their
high prerogative imposes, is more than melancholy.
So is the whole system, the motives, the results,
the works themselves; which, impious, gloomy, and
offensive as they may be, unjust to human nature
and discouraging to virtue, are less repelling even
in their hard deformity, than in the ghastly levitv,
the atrocious libertinism mixed up with it.
July 28th. Within a few days we have made
a flying leap from tranquillity to bustle. Arrivals
THE SEASON OPENED. 313
are frequent, so of course are new faces ; balls
warm into vigour, beauties are announced, and
the sweet stillness, the country quiet of this pretty
little place, is threatened, or more than threatened,
with invasion. Already the two Cercles are at dag-
gers drawn, and every spring set in motion by
each of the rival proprietors to propel the crowd in
the direction of his own particular interest. One
Cercle being quite enough for the place, the crowd
cry out with Macheath, " How happy could I be
with either;" but less nonchalant than that re-
nowned commander, instead of finishing with a ' tol
de rol,' go to both.
One of the principal charms of these cheerful
and unceremonious coteries, is the easy toilette;
perhaps the early hours may be another. There
is great good sense in not exhausting an amuse-
ment ; chaperons keep their eyes open, and young
ladies keep their roses, — so soon lost in the vapour-
bath atmosphere of a jammed ball-room, where
the indefatigables, who regularly wait for the dregs
of an entertainment, look, at the end of the season,
as if they had cheated Charon of his fare, or were
indulging in a game of snap-dragon.
VOL. i. p
314 THE SEASON OPENED.
Strangers who come here unknown, and wish to
make acquaintances, are authorized by the received
code of politeness to send their cards to those who
have arrived before them ; which form, usually
gone through, sanctions a bow, and if the parties
are so disposed, opens the way to a future ac-
quaintance. Reserved persons who do not under-
stand this custom, are shy of complying with it,
lest it should involve them in any disagreeable
consequences; though none whatever are to be
apprehended, as no acquaintance follows unless it
be mutually desired: but people have a kind of
knowledge of each other, which is thought to give
a family air to the evening meetings very favour-
able to cheerfulness.
I have spoken of the easy toilette, but without
meaning to insinuate that the modest cloak of
pepper and salt, drugget, and subdued black dress
of the English ramblers in Switzerland, is ever
encountered here. The wanderers in that " hemp-
en, homespun country," I mean as far as fashions
are concerned, are usually birds of passage on the
wing for another land, and who, having Italy in
perspective, do not unpack ; but preserving their
THE EASY TOILETTE. 315
Paris modes inviolate for the coteries of Rome or
Naples, equip themselves sturdily for mountain
work, and think of nothing more, when the first
dinner bell-rings, than ablutions, smooth hair, and
a little fresh frilling. But here people come
prepared for something of society, though on a
limited scale ; and as the Pyrenees are the aim and
end of their journey, and lead to nothing, the
imperials are unpacked, and their elegant, though
in general very simple contents (for in France the
dress is always in keeping with the place) spread
abroad, to the dismay of those who reckoned on
running out in the dear little apron.
Besides, the visitors here are almost entirely
French, who, like some abigail of romance that I
have read of, — it may be the renowned Mrs.
Honour herself, though I will not vouch for it, —
never travel without their sweet clothes ; while in
Switzerland they are principally English, hard-
working labourers, some with the love of nature in
their hearts and the deep feeling of its most mar-
vellous beauty; others with a spirit of enterprise
that is, in its way, enthusiasm ; all fearless of
chances, and prepared for rough marches in the
p2
316 CLIMATE.
fitful weather incident to a Swiss climate. Here
we have fair-weather skies and fashions, — fashions
calculated on the reputation of the skies, and skies
meriting all the fine things that can be said of
them. It is true, that the example of a single
summer cannot be fairly taken as a criterion of
climate, any more than a pretty face as a voucher
for the charms of its neighbour; both may be fal-
lible tests, and yet we are apt to put our faith in
such credentials. I remember once remarking the
beauty of a girl who kept a stall clo.-e to the gate
of a town, and happened to be the first person that
we saw on entering it. " She is nothing, (said a
person to whom I pointed her out,) you will see
hundreds here that are handsomer." I thought
myself among the houries, but never saw another
pretty face while I remained in their paradise.
Perhaps this is not a case in point, and that the
present delicious weather, instead of being like my
girl at the gate, a false sample, may be the usual
settled fine of the Pyreneean mountains, (for the
plains have another climate and a more ardent
one) ; if so, it is perfect : sun, air, and sky, even
in their kindest moments, cannot do better.
MUSIC AMD ITS ILLUSIONS. 317
As we loitered along this evening, returning
slowly from our twilight ramble, our troubadours
of the inn were making eloquent music for the
good pleasure of a listening maiden, who looked
down upon them from her balcony. It was a
charming air — the one they played, with a sweet
touch of sorrow in it, and beautifully did they
bring it out from their stringed instruments, with
skill enough to give effect to feeling, and feeling
sufficient to keep skill, at least its mechanism, out
of mind. If they had been hidden in a wood,
and I the only living listener, I might have fancied
their music the symphonies of angels, growing into
sweeter strength as the entire silence of night fell
upon them. But the robust mistress of the band,
her long-haired child, (of canister memory,) and
two male companions, literally and physically street
fiddlers, with the unshorn Hebrew look which
especially belongs to that fraternity, were full in
view, — so no room for illusions.
These performers are from the old minstrel
land, and to their violins Cauteretz owes all its
music : I have never heard other sound either of
voice or instrument. The old painters loved to
place a violin in the hands of their angels, and
318 THE VIOLIN.
though the engine may be of quaint form, and
unfitted by familiar associations to figure in a
celestial choir, whose organ of praise should be (it
would seem) the ready one of seraphic song, yet,
as it was in the taste of the age to express the
worship of angels by the intervention of human
ingenuity, a better choice could not have been
made than of this instrument ; for there is none
through whose sound — fluent and voice-like — the
song of praise, or the deep ravishment of absorbed
and tremulous adoration, could have found a freer,
purer, or more congenial medium, except it were
in the glorious burst, the upswelling hallelujah, or
the prolonged vibrations of the organ.
I greatly love the violin, that is in skilful hands,
and have often, as the cunning bow stole upwards,
drawing out a fine continuous tone till it reached
the highest clef of sound, fancied that its silvery
wailing might be like the voice of a fallen, but
contrite spirit. If it were necessary to justify my
taste in instruments, which it is not, so many are
of the same fancy, I might be tempted to say
pithy and convincing things to those who confound
the fiddle with the violin ; or to those who, having
only heard the scrape of the former, or danced to
THE POETRY OF NAMES. 319
it, know little of what the violin is capable of pro-
ducing, or of the high discourse which the instru-
ment of home fun or ball-room gaiety can hold
with our thoughts, feelings, passions, when skil-
fully awakened. The violin player and the fiddler
profess the same art, and exercise it with the same
(mechanical) implements; so do Wordsworth and
the illustrious rhymer who turns out limping
couplets, and " serves the quality 11 with elegies or
epithalamiums, and the rustic lover with doggrel,
at all prices, from " whatever your honour
pleases, 11 down to the humbler pennyworth.
The eldest sons of the earth, as some one calls
the great mountains, become the expressive appel-
lations whicli distinguish them here, — as La Mala-
detta, (the accursed mountain) ; the Poey Mourou,
(black peak); Mont Perdu, (lost mountain);
Traou Malet,* (mauvais trou) ; Campana del Val,
(bell of the valley, and the same that will toll
on the day of judgment), &c. The lakes and
torrents, too, have had their romantic baptisms, —
as the Coumbe Scure, (lake of the dark hill) ;
Riou Mou, (bad stream) ; le Pas de TOurs, (the
pass of the bear), and many others ; some chris-
* Tourmalet.
320 COMPENSATIONS.
tened in the patois of the country, others familiar-
ized to the stranger's ear through the less energetic
medium of the modern tongue. The poetical
feeling to which the streams and mountains of the
Pyrenees owe their characteristic denominations,
appears to be the heritage of rude minds. We
often find fine or modern names grafted on the
simple and expressive ones by which the remark-
able features of a country are known in the dialect
of the peasants, but they have not their charm or
character. The literal meaning, too, of these ver-
nacular names is sometimes so beautiful ! What
sweet ones are often attached to old lands in
1 1 eland, — as Lisnegar, the fort of sorrow ; or
Benena, the music of the glen : what a sin it
would be to make Rose Hill, or Holly Mount, of
them, or even Tivoli, or Laurentinum. I do not
know what Cader Idris may mean, nor yet Helvel-
leyn; but if they be translateable it must, I am
sure, be into something wild and grand ; both
sound so in their untranslated tongue.
Nothing so comfortable as a belief in compensa-
tions. I have just now been talking to a woman,
who told me wonders of Toulouse, where she had
lived formerly; Cauteretz was of course a dull
SUPERSTITION. 321
spot compared with it, but then you were not
tempted to put into the lottery : this was the
equivalent. The compensation sometimes lies, like
truth, at the bottom of the well, and it is not every
one who can draw it up; sometimes cela saute aux
yeux, as the French say. I will not name names,
but once upon a time there was a certain man
whose father died at the age of eighty ; the son, a
philosopher and scholar, received with dignity the
consolations of his friends, and thanking them
graciously, added, " (Test un grand malheur,
une grande perte ; mais, enfin, mon pere etoit
octogone."* This may be called an eight-sided
compensation.
The mountaineers of the Pyrenees are, like all
other dwellers in remote places, addicted to super-
stition, and believers (they say) in all those old
credences, at which the more instructed laugh.
Wise men, I know, consider superstition as a stupid
thing, at once the root and flower of ignorance ;
but I, who am not wise, cannot help thinking that
it is sometimes a garment to the poor, a sort of
Providence that hangs berries on the dry bushes
that tangle in their path, covering their briery
* i. p. Octogdnaire.
p3
322 SUPERSTITION, ITS COMFORTS
scantiness with a little show of colouring. Besides,
it is a belief, and that is in itself a blessing ; those
who acknowledge supernatural agency, will also
acknowledge a directing power.
Black superstition I should, however, bar out ;
though I well know the delight, — vague, fearful,
dark, but still delight, — which this excitement
produces; and how the dullest mind answers to
the touch, as the sleepy horse does to the stroke of
the whip ; at once finding unknown or forgotten
energies, and revelling in their exercise. But
shutting the door against these sable gentlemen, I
would leave the key-hole open for the fairies,
(greatly respected here,) and for other superstitions
of a pious and gentle nature, which I often think
are the grains of salt that give pungency to a
brown-bread existence. Some, too, are so beau-
tiful ! all those that belong to the Virgin have
such a blush of freshness on them, something so
household and congenial to the innocent heart,
that it would be a pity to rob the glens and moun-
tains of the shrines which perpetuate so sweet a
worship. The voices which are heard pray in o-
in the desert, the angels that in the guise of
benighted wanderers knock at the herdsman's hut,
AND ITS DANGERS. 323
and, if they find him of good faith, bestow their
blessing on him ; the holy well in the wilderness,
the shrine in the hollow of the rock, are dreams
that I would leave with the devout souls who find
comfort in them ; neither would I disturb their
faith in the rude effigies of that sacred symbol,
which all Christian eyes behold with reverence.
But on superstition that takes its colouring
from the spreading circle of monastic gloom, whose
base is terror, and object mental degradation or
enthralment, I would have no mercy. It has
nothing in common with the tender and consoling
superstitions of the mountains, with the legends
of the shepherd's hut, or the evening visions of the
desert, except the demand which it makes on the
necessary stock of credulity.
My view of the subject is not, perhaps, a very
philosophical one. I should probably make a bad
reformer ; for, with a sincere desire to see the light
of truth breaking in upon the gloom of ignorance
and bigotry, to see religion entering into the heart
instead of merely exciting the fancy, based on
the pure and beautiful foundation of the gospel
instead of on the inventions of man, and looking
up to heaven with humble confidence instead of
324 LONG LIVE THE FAIRIES.
making over its dearest interests to foreign agency;
yet for the gentle superstitions already spoken of,
I feel a tenderness of which I cannot divest myself.
I would disarm the nursery faith of its terrors,
but keep its poetry, its cheering dreams, and con-
soling presages ; I would keep, too, its fairy tales,
for I doat on them ; and for their dear and
honoured sakes who are therein shrined, would
reform with a pair of scissors, not a scythe ; and
when condemned for maladministration, go out of
the world crying " Long live Poucet and his seven
brothers ! long live the desert fairy, the yellow
dwarf, and the renowned Ricquet a, la Houpe !"
AN EXCURSION. 325
CHAPTER XVIII.
EXCURSION TO THE CHATEAU DESPOURRINS — THE MA-
SON'S EYE AND THE TOET's THE MOUNTAIN MINSTREL
CLOTILDE — THE PARADISE OF ST. SAVIN THE AB-
BEY CHURCH — QUEEN MARGARETS VISIT — MONKS AND
MAIDS OF HONOUR MONASTIC IDLENESS THE SAINT
FLIES AND FLOWERS THE HOLY MAN RETURN
TO CAUTERETZ — WANTS BEAUTY A WATERING-PLACE
CONSCIENCE.
The sweet sun and soft shadows of yesterday,
tempted us to make an excursion to the abbey of
St. Savin, in the bright valley of Argelez. There
is but one carriage-road from Cauteretz, the same
gorge of which I have already spoken ; and beau-
tiful it looked to-day, especially where the hills
recede, as if to let the eye fall at once on the clear
and rapid river, the sunlit valley beyond, the
peaked mountains, and the village of Pierrefitte
looking white and cool in the midst of its dark
trees and green savannahs. It is a sparkling pic-
ture full of living freshness, and succeeds to the
more scowling scenery of the gorge as Lady *s
326 AN EXCURSION TO
smile does to the lour of her eye-brows, all the
more effective for the contrast.
Having passed Pierrefitte, we left the carriage
and the high road, and while the more effective
members of the family party took to their feet,
I inserted myself in a chair, and humbly imitating
the rajah's wives, set off with my bearers. We
dispensed with elephants and Lalla Rookh cur-
tains, but not altogether with pretensions ; for the
men, sensible perhaps that matters looked some-
what rickety, swelled out about a new chair to be
set up next season, in all the elegance of which
hoops and tarpaulin are susceptible In the mean
time, on we went (steadying the rickets as well as
we could) along shaded paths and fresh meadows,
till we arrived at a dismantled house of an agree-
able elevation, raised on a charming terrace, but
with scarcely a whole pane of glass in the windows;
hay, straw, boards, all put in requisition, and
clubbing their capabilities to keep out the weather.
In short, a genuine Castle Rackrent, with an old
Thady and a young one, two half-starved cats and
a turbulent mastiff, who would have eaten us all
up, I believe, but for an intimate friend of his,
who bullied him into tranquillity.
THE CHATEAU DfcSPOURRINS. 327
This is the Chateau Despourrins, (or Miramont,
as it is also called,) and a charming thing it might
be made, if its proprietor were able or willing (for
either will or power seems wanting) to rescue it
from the state of dilapidation into which it seems
fast falling. The terrace, or rather the view from
it, is delightful ; and no one being at home but the
Thadys and the cats, we begged leave to dine upon
it, with the beautiful valley of Argelez unrolled
before us, the road within buzzing distance, the
mountains farther off; beneath, a hamlet with its
church and rustic belfry; and, sheltering us at one
side, a round green hill, with a fine sweep of wood
from top to bottom, close and fresh as if cherished
for some sacred purpose. On a low mountain,
which detaches itself from a more elevated range
at the opposite side of the valley, are the ruins of
the Chateau de Beaucan, an ancient castle of the
Rohan Rocheforts, which strangers usually visit.
According to my chairmen, (whose beat does not
lie that way,) there is nothing to be seen but an
old wall. Perhaps in this old wall La Martine,
had he turned his steps that way, might have
found an elegy, or Beranger a thought with a
profound moral in it ; but my chairmen tried it by
328 the mason's eye avj> the poet's.
the rules of masonry, and having no mental eyes,
never once saw the high device of the Rohans over
the crumbling portal, which more gifted ones
would have discovered under a century's growth of
ivy. I do not pretend to gifts, but I read it even
from my distance, that proud motto,
" Roi ne peut, Prince ae veut, Rohan je suis."
It broke on the air like the neighing of a war-
horse, or the sound of a trumpet.
Before we quitted Despourrins, I had thoroughly
repaired the house, (and by the same process
which had helped me to read the motto,) thrown
out balconies, filled them with flowers, placed
marble vases full of southern plants on the terrace
parapet, trained the beautiful Spanish honeysuckle
over the walls, and made the dwelling worthy of
the scene it overlooks. I think, too, that I dis-
placed here and there a corn-field to make way
for a green slope, and turned out some herds of
cattle to graze upon the meadows.
The owner of this neglected capability, is the
son, or grandson, of the poet Despourrins, the
minstrel of the Pyrenees, whose ballads are sung
in everv mountain-hut when the lonsr niehts of
winter come, and the log burns on the hearth, and
THE MOUNTAIN MINSTREL. 329
the gossips of the hamlet roast chestnuts in the
ashes, and spin out flax and stories while the
candle lasts. He himself used (as the younger
Thady informed us) to sing his romances in the
woods at night ; but the present man is no poet,
and the nightingales are again in full possession.
These romances are, it is said, full of feeling,
tenderness, and beauty ; they are in the patois of
the country, — a language prolific in expressions of
sorrow, anger, love, joy, and all that poetry bor-
rows of emotion. It is probably the same gascon
of which Montaigne (speaking of the mountain
patois) calls " un gascon singulierement beau, sec,
bref, signifiant i" 1 and again, " nerveux, puissant,
et pertinent ;" but easily subduing the brief energy
and male beauty for which he seems most to
admire it, to the expression of the tenderest shades
of sentiment. I know nothing of it but its sound,
which comes to my ear as something like the de-
licious (and much more intelligible) old French of
that sweet Clotilde de Surville,* fondest of wives
" Marguerite E16onore Clotilde de Vallon Chalys, bora
1405, and married at fifteen to the Chevalier Beranger de
Surville. She was the daughter of the gallant Ferdinand
de Vallon and the beautiful Pulch£rie de Fay Collan, his
wife. This charming poetess was herself the type of the
330 CLOTILDE.
and most tender of poetesses, and this is spell
enough for me. I know that critics, who love to
destroy illusions, give a more modern date to the
domestic and loving records which bear her name ;
but I would not, for the onyx on the finger of the
Zoilus, were it rarer even than the turquoise (rich
gift of the maiden Leah to her Hebrew bachelor)
which the " most sweet Jew" and graceless child
stole from her father,* deprive myself of the plea-
sant belief that thev are hers. To whom else could
they belong but to the innocent and fond wife,
who, sitting by the cradle of her new-born child
in her absent husband's castle, sends sweet speech
and passionate notices to the liege lord and love of
her young heart, the idol of her beautiful fancy ?
Who, but the tender mother, could have imagined
those almost infantine, yet exquisitely maternal
I erselets a mon Premier Ne, beginning
" O cher enfantelet, vray pourtraict de ton pere !
Dors sur le seyn que ta bouche a pressed
Dors petitot, eloz, amy, sur le seyn de ta mere,
Tiens doulx oeillet par le somme oppress^ ! "
vraie chatelaine, the high-minded woman and faithful wife
of the fifteenth century ; her birth-place was a chateau on
the banks of the Ardeches in the Bas Vivarais, and it is
said, that she never quitted her native province.
* Vide Merchant of Venice.
PARADISE OF ST. SAVIN. 331
No one, I am sure ; — and so will all say who have
read the poesies of this charming trouveresse.
Between Despourrins and the abbey of St. Savin
is the chapel of La Pieta, lifted up on the palm of
a hill, and with a view, that makes water-colours
of the poet's terrace. O it is lovely ! I could look
at it till I had dreamt my heart into its beauty,
and forgotten that I was there myself looking at
it. The habitual sky of pale silver blue above;
below, the valley of peacefulness and beauty, — the
scooped hills with hamlets half-buried in their
woods, invisible but for their glistening roof's of
purple slate and white chimneys ; and the moun-
tains with the velvet brown, the heathy purple
brown, shading their broad pastures. How many
stray blessings lie in our path, when a lovely day
sends us out among such scenes as these, — how
many thoughts written in sunbeams, — how much
present gladness, or quiet reflection, deep and still,
yet finding its way heavenwards, and loosening the
cares of the heart as it does so !
But the crown-imperial, in the way of views, is
from the abbey itself, or rather, from the garden
attached to it. How beautiful it is ! and in the
best style of Italian colouring, like one of those
332 PARADISE OF ST. SAVIN.
rich old pictures that nourish the fancy while they
delight the eye. The coteaux of Argelez are,
perhaps, more beautiful seen from the Pieta ; but
the look along the valley into the mountains is
here almost matchless : all the magic of aereal
tinting and warmth of vegetation which belong to
southern countries brighten on it, and give it a
character distinctly different from the more sub-
lime, but less warmly developed scenery of Swit-
zerland. I left my chair behind me in the village,
and my companions tied their mules to the convent
door; and then we passed on to the terrace, and
looked down from its embowered seat upon the tre-
lised vines, whose tender and gracefully indented
leaves form a carpet of living verdure beneath
the eye, and on the revel land of loveliness that lay
before us; the white chapel of the Pieta standing
out on its beautiful hill, with the woods below, and
the blue heaven above it ; the warm vapour colour-
ing the mountains with unimaginable hues, and the
mountains themselves lengthening off into shadow,
as if they would bury their radiance in repose.
And here again I could have sat hour after hour
delightedly, on the garden wall in the shade of the
old abbey church, looking above and below, and
PARADISE OF ST SAVIX. 333
forward over the open loveliness of the valley, into
the mysterious majesty of the mountains. The
spot itself is as dry as a bundle of hay, scarcely a
green leaf or the semblance of a flower, except a
ragged jasmine trodden down by the careless feet
kindly admitted within its enclosure, and a few
straggling roses, — sweet roses ! that live and bloom
every where, and, as if by the force of their own
beautiful will, in spite of all contingencies. But
better than pinks and gillyflowers, or even than
orange trees and oleanders, is the parapet on which
we sat or leaned, wishing to stay there till night-
fall, the landscape was so beautiful, and the still-
ness — the distant country stillness, so soothing !
But we had four leagues, with two huge hills in the
midst of them, to repass : so we drew a long breath
before our good by ; then turned back again and
drew another; sat down, got up, and at last —
off'; but with great and increasing reluctance.
While dwelling on such a scene, an ineffable sense
of happiness is communicated to the mind ; anxiety
is suspended ; restlessness, bodily and mental, ap-
peased ; the spirit calmed while raised ; and the
heart content with itself, as if it reposed upon the
memory of a good deed.
.'334. THE ABBEY CIIUBCU.
The word abbey — a fine- grey word, and in itself
.1 chronjcle,— had Led me into an error. I had ex-
pected ruins on a beautiful site, sueli a one as
those monastic pearl-pickers, the Cistercians, and
indeed monks in general, knew so well how to
select; and here was no disappoint men), for tin-
spot is a rare one, and worthy of their preference;
hut St. Savin's abbey* exists no longer, at hast in
its monachal form. An old church, with a fine
exterior colouring, B carved porch of ancient work-
manship, and some hits of sculpture in the walls,
still remain. Within the church are some curious
pictures portraying the life, and death, and mira-
cles of the saint, who is there interred under a sort
of gilt baby house; and an organ or the skeleton
,,f ,„. — ;, s old, I should think, as the date of the
canonized himself, with a row of heads rudely
carved al the bottom, that still contrive to wag
their jaws, and shul their eyes, with a line marrow-
bone-and cleaver rattle, when the instrument (if
such it may be called) is touched ; two clatter and
wag as if they had only been just set going for the
first time, hut the third grows rigid and refractory.
There are no cloisters now, hut the capitals of
* Originally founded by Charlemagne.
Ul'KKN MARGARET'8 visit. 385
some small columns, which probably belonged to
them, decorate ilu v garden wall. The monks and
their pillars were unsettled together by the free
burghers of the <>1<I revolution, who righted rights
after their own gay, careless, ooupe-gorge fashion;
and the blank, though still somewhat convent-
Looking house which now represents the monastery,
(or may be, perhaps, its very self modernised, for
we can find no one capable of informing us on the
subject,) oilers few mind-helping images — exteri-
orly at least, and we had no billet (loilxc ,' so
that we must shut our eyes to Bee th.it busy night
when Margaret of Navarre and her scattered train
found shelter and hospitality within its walls.
The same Marguerite
" Qui (It's tendrea amourettes
Dei moiiies et des iionettes
A fait UIl reeueil miilm;"
but a very good woman, too, notwithstanding her
heptameron.
The court had been water-drinking ai CauteretZ,
(or Caudres, as it was then called,) till thev were
surprised by an October deluge. Down came the
rain, filling the houses, destroying the roads, swel-
ling the torrents, which in their turn carried away
336 queen Margaret's visit.
the bridges, and overflowed the country. Queen,
court, and all were turned adrift : some got off'
through the mountains to Arragon, Roussillion,
and Navarre ; others, who had escaped in the same
way, took shipping at Barcelona for Marseilles,
while the less lucky ones tried cross-roads, and
losing their way, fell among robbers, or were
devoured by bears. But the queen and her exclu-
sives paddled, or swam, or waded — for we are not
told which, — to the abbey of St. Savin ; where, in
the naive phrase of an extant letter of Margaret's,
the abbot "logeades dames et des demoiselles dans
son appartement. II leur fournit de bons chevaux
deLavedan, de bonnes capes de Beam, force vivres
pour arriver a notre dame de Sarrance,'"' &c.
How the fire blazed that night in the arched
refectory ! and how the maids of honour giggled,
and wrung the night-dew out of their fair tresses,
or their dark ones, and bewildered the poor monks,
whose Ash- Wednesday visages must have cut a
grim figure near the gay Shrovetide faces of the
court damsels! Perhaps there were some of Father
Philip's innocents among them, who thought such
geese no bad birds; and others within whose bo-
soms shadows of the long gone-by may have been
MONASTIC IDLENESS. 337
called up with painful and dangerous fidelity, by
the sudden apparition of such guests. Boccaccio or
Chaucer would have made a merry, or perhaps a
woful tale out of the adventures of that night, and
called it by some quaint name, — as the Mayde's
Legende, or the Monk's Stryfe, or Madam Mar-
garet's Pilgrimage ; indeed, an imagination that is
neither Chaucer's or Boccaccio's might make pic-
ture out of the queen's visit, coming like a be-
nighted Esther, with her train of dripping maids
to crave hospitality of the holy abbot, knocking
with royal prerogative at the gates, and then
bending to receive his blessing before she passed
through them.
In all positions idleness is the stagnant pool of
the mind, whose fat waters generate corrupt vege-
tation ; but the idleness of a monastic life is much
more likely to be prolific of evil, than the idleness
cf the world. The last is a free-will profession,
adopted voluntarily by minds suited to it, and
commonly taking a sociable or a meddling turn, —
sure, usually, at the long run to tire others, and
often ending in the horrors of lassitude ; but ex-
empt from the solitary and — for its possessor —
dangerous character which it assumes when forced
VOL. I. Q
338 THE SAINT.
upon an ardent, brooding, or passionate nature.
Who can tell what melancholy mischief the chance
visit of the courtly company may have worked
among the brothers of the order, if any of such
mould were cribbed within the abbey walls on that
memorable evening ?
The benedictine monk, St. Savin, had gone to
burn his eternal candle in another world centuries
before " la Marguerite des Marguerites" halted
within its walls. He was a pattern of sanctity,
and professor of miracles; and carried a candle
always about him, which was instantly lighted by
being placed in his bosom, and though it appeared
to burn like other candles, never was consumed.
But though I talk thus lightly — perhaps irreve-
rently, of the holy Savin, yet he was an anchoret
of the old pate. Noble by birth, being the son of
a count of Poitou in the time when counts were
sovereigns, Spaniard by country, being a native
of Barcelona; pious as the fathers of the desert,
he came to his solitude, resigning the honours of
his race, subduing the ardour of his southern
blood, and, with the same courageous indifference
to all worldly indulgences which St. Jerome car-
ried with him to his Syrian desert, built himself a
FLIES AND FLOWERS. 339
cabin in the wilderness, and died in the odour of
sanctity in his Thebaid.
Quitting the church, every form and variety of
goitre pressed round us. The air of the village,
which, such as it is, boasts a Roman origin, is
(owing perhaps to its arcades and a certain ruinous
look) perfectly Italian ; so are the vines, flinging
about their garlands from branch to branch in
the sweet vagabond, and I believe useless, Italian
way ; for good wine, or rather its parent fruit,
needs a prop, though according to Rosalind no
bush. We did not return by the same path which
we had followed in going to St. Savin, but descend-
ing by a more rapid one, looked down through an
open wood on some abrupt slopes, now in their
after-grass beauty ; and dropping into the road a
short way below Pierrefitte, sat down beside a
clear pool, and amused ourselves, while we waited
for our carriage, with the gambols of that pretty
fly, the demoiselle — indeed of myriads of them, as
they hung upon the broad green leaves that grew
about, or in it ; admiring their dark wings — thin
and shining like a sort of old-fashioned crackling
gauze, of which I forget the name ; watching their
light and elegant movements ; blowing shepherd's
a 2
340 FLIES AND FLOWERS.
clocks ; and making field nosegays ; poor sports,
some may think, but not I for one, who love them
nearly as well as when I used to run out in a storm
of rain, crossing slippery fields, and brooks too
when they came in my way, to gather double violets
or jonquils, with an inverted geranium-pot on my
head to keep the rain off, being a greatly preferable
thing (I used to think) to a bonnet. Our posies,
which were beautiful, soon withered ; and we were
obliged, after having nursed them up in cool
leaves, to throw them away. In the fields, flowers
grow wild and lavishly, but rarely long outlive the
gathering ; in a garden, care, skill, and cherishing,
with a good soil — even sometimes with a meagre
one, — puts sap into their stalks, and gives strength,
brightness, and permanency to their beauty : but
the hot-house forces them into a sickly maturity,
which being artificially produced, loses at once its
freshness, and dies worthlessly if removed to a
natural atmosphere, — in all which there is a moral,
that I leave to others to find out.
As we drove along homewards, admiring the
black pines, and fine-drawn peaks of a wild spot in
the gorge of Cauteretz, we observed a man bare-
headed and with naked feet, kneeling before a rock
s
THE HOLY MAN. 341
and praying devoutly. The figure, taken with the
scene and hour, was striking ; and perhaps we might
have grown poetical about it, if a sturdy urchin,
jackal to the anchoret, had not jumped over the
fence, and setting up the true canting whine of a
regular country beggar, enlightened us as to the
length, breadth, and depth, of the holy man's
piety. This devout display was of course meant
to gull the simple folk who were returning home-
wards from the market of Argelez, one with a pur-
chase of goats, another with a refractory pig, or a
calf thrown across his shoulders, and a third with
an osier cage full of chickens, with a skittish girl
(sometimes a pair of them) belonging to each
party, hanging loose amongst the more occupied
members, and seeming to think it doing quite
enough to bring herself home in safety. After the
beautiful stillness of St. Savin, our angle seemed
like Piccadilly, or the Boulevards, quite a town-
confusion of sounds and press of carriages, — five
country coaches, and a twenty-inside sort of omni-
bus waggon, through all which our double phaeton
(hired for the occasion) steered its way with dif-
ficulty.
Monday. As I looked at the mountains to-day
342 WANTS.
and thought of Spain, I fancied that I should like
to peep again into Don Quixote: so sent for it to
the library, but it was not on the list ; neither was
Gil Bias, nor the Bachelor, nor Hurtado or Que-
vedo, or any thing else that treated of Spanish life
or manners. Nothing was read (according to the
shopwoman) but " LTEchaffaud," and that was
engaged ten deep.
A very general want in small company- places*
is a good and appropriate circulating-library. A
few indifferent novels usually constitute the ground-
work of the stock, pulled up by " Notre Dame de
Paris," or " La Peau de Chagrin ;" perhaps " Ou-
rika," or " Cinq Mars," or Walter Scott — the
general bark draught and purifier of all circulating
libraries abroad as at home. One is quite as sure
of finding him spread out at full length between
the Duchesse d'Abrantes and Zimmerman — the
usual alpha and omega of a French country
catalogue, as between " Abbey," (of Grasville,)
and " Zofloya, or the Moor, " our customary head
and tail pieces.
* I will not say here particularly, for the catalogue is
more solid than usual, only one can never get the books
named in it.
WANTS. 34)3
After the want of books, — which to me, who
love them almost as dearly as Chaucer's Oxford
scholar did, is no small privation, — comes the
want of a piano. There is not even a spinet
to be hired here, and those who wish to exer-
cise voice or finger, must ask leave to do so
(when there is a chance of finding the room unoc-
cupied) at the Cercle ; where they are probably no
sooner seated, than two or three anxious faces,
peeping in at the door, take care to let them know
that they are intruders, and that an arranged card
party, impatient of delay, find the
" bout
Of linked sweetness,"
far too " long drawn out" for their pleasure, or
patience either.
Here are no table d'hotes, as in Switzerland and
Germany, — at least none of any note : dinners are
furnished by traiteurs, (of whom there are several)
at a moderate price, and of proportionate quality.
From three in the afternoon till seven in the
evening, young girls shoot by in all directions,
poising on their heads the enormous basket,
where four and four, or six and six, are duly
arranged with strict attention to numerical exact-
344 BEAUTY,
ness, and somewhat less to the filling up. Two
celebrated beauties are among the number of these
breathing Caryatides; one bold and lavish, with
a free bright eye and animated movement ; the
other so retiring, that it is difficult to get even
a glimpse of her fine Greek profile. In the class
immediately above that of the labouring peasant,
there is a great deal of beauty scattered about in
the south of France ; but the downright country
women are in general tanned and ill-featured. I
have seen, however, some handsome exceptions,
particularly in the Landes, and have been told
that at Marseilles, and other parts of the south
that approach or border on the Mediterranean,
fine heads, and shapes to match them, are the
common growth of the country.
But the soil of Cauteretz grows coarser stuff';
no handsome faces visible, and few even comely
ones among the peasant girls who throng in
here on holidays. The men are a finer race ;
but all are remarkable for an air of peculiar
decency, and for being much better and more
comfortably clad, than persons in their class of life
usually are ; their dark brown berrets are gene-
rally in good condition, and their strong cloth
AND NO BEAUTIES. 345
jackets and trousers of the same colour, sound and
u n patched. The women wear close gowns, also of
brown cloth, with scarlet capulets, laid on at the
edge with black ; to which, on dressy days, they
add large white neck-handkerchiefs ; and when
stiffened up in their best gear, look precisely like
the figures on the ancient monuments set upright.
The close, grave robe, down to the ground, the
quaint capulet framing in the face between two
straight lines that terminate abruptly below the
waist, falling back and disclosing the arms beneath
muffled almost to the fingers' 1 ends, are all of the
true tomb-stone character ; and if the face be
spare, and the eyelid long and heavy, make the
exact chatelaine of the gothic sepulchre.
The moral atmosphere of a watering-place is
rarely, if ever, of the purest ; and one is not sur-
prised to find a little — and I believe it is but very
little — town-corruption in the valley of Cauteretz.
In one shape, however, it does appear, and promi-
nently ; the spirit of higgling has an existence and
consistency decidedly indicative of the mineral-
spring conscience, which always has the short sea-
son before its eyes, serving at once as temptation
and excuse. The younkers who hawk about nose-
q3
346 WATERING-PLACE CONSCIENCE.
gays and plates of wood strawberries, are as
finished extortioners as the most accomplished
ones of the capital. A little girl comes to me
every other evening, opens the door without a
preliminary knock, steals in noiselessly, being bare-
footed ; and when my happy tribe are gone farther
off on a ramble than my feet can carry me, and
that I think myself alone, is often standing at my
table, with the scarlet capulet thrown back from a
soft pretty face and her basket extended towards
me, for a moment or two before her gentle hem!
attracts my attention. She usually brings four
small nosegays, each consisting of a rose and a
few gay-looking weeds, for which she asks about
as much as a Parisian would pay for a ball
bouquet ; yet it cannot be said that she means to
impose, for instead of beginning with an exorbitant
demand, and, when refused, dropping down to
another, which, though so much lower than the
first as to sound (by comparison) like a bargain, is
still enormous, she sticks with the courage of a
martyr to her first price — probably the one fixed
on by her mother; nor can any thing subdue her
quiet obstinacy, or change the inveterate non, non,
which is all that she has learned to express in
A PARIS ONE. 347
regular French. Considering the quality of her
wares, and the facility with which trefoil, and mea-
dow-sweet, and buttercups are gathered here, her
demand is a dishonest one; but there is a show of
integrity in her stubbornness that carries off the
extortion. After all, perhaps a casuist in morals
would say, that where a choice is allowed there
can be no extortion, and condemn the word
altogether.
A milliner at Paris once said to a lady when I
was present, " I do not affect to sell bargains, or
to content myself with small profits, but I never
change my prices : these, as well as the goods, are
before you; you have the free liberty of option,
and a certainty that there is no particular imposi-
tion intended, as the prices are never altered : it is
for you to buy or not, as you please. 1 ' 1 One could
not call this tricking, and yet the intention was
certainly to get more for the merchandise than in
strict probity ought to have been asked.
348 A STORM, AND
CHAPTER XIX.
A STORM, AND ITS EFFECT ON THE MIND LE SAINT SUA1KE
AND ITS VIRTUES — EXCURSION TO LAC DE GAUBE —
OPENING OF THE A'ALLEY OF MARCADAU — MARVEL-
LOUS CHAIRMEN SPANISH FANCIES — MY ROCKING-
HORSE A PAUSE AT THE CERISET DREAMS INTER-
RUPTED THE CERISET PONT D'ESPAGNE VALLEY
OF THE LAC DE GAUBE — CHARACTER OF ITS SCENERY
RETURN AT EVENING DANCING CHILDREN — FIXE
GOLD AND HARDER METAL.
The other day I quarrelled with a thunder-storm
for its muffled tone and small artillery; but last
night we had such a wiping off of scores, — such a
hurtling in the heavens ! lightning sheeting the
earth with its blue glare and streaming in at the
unshuttered windows, while the loud thunder came
booming from the distance with a deep forward
roll, like a mighty vessel labouring through the
clouds and throwing off its tremendous broadsides;
and then the last unearthly sound, — the retreat-
ing one, — dying with slow rebound along the hills
until it was lost in fearful silence, quickly and
ITS EFFECT ON THE MIND 349
suddenly broken by a fresh uproar, more awfully
near, or more solemnly distant than the former.
What plenitude of power is in a storm ! with
what a voice it cries aloud in the wilderness, com-
passing the earth in its mighty sweep, and mock-
ing the strength and violence of man! When the
stars that keep nightly watch in the firmament
seem extinguished, and the blue dome into
whose fields of light the timid imagination fears
not to adventure, feeling that nothing but joy,
and love, and praise, can dwell in such a heaven,
is transformed into a tossed and shapeless desert,
the heart sinks, — seeing in its lurid darkness
images that it had not dared to think of, and
hearing in its deadly and portentous sounds the
same voice, that when the condemned to everlast-
ing punishment inquire what hour of the night it
is, — as if the passage of time could allay their
torments, — answers, " Eternity !"*
Such storms as that of last night are not heard,
even in countries subject to their visitations, with-
out some feeling of alarm, though familiarity strips
danger of many of its terrors ; but the unknown
* This fine and fearful image was presented by a Chris-
tian missionary to the minds of his Indian followers.
350 EFFECT ON THE MIND.
voice, the unfathomable power, never entirely
loses its hold on the mind. Science may prove
that the shock and the flash are the effects of
natural and explicable causes ; but in the volume
of the mind is a page on which the might and
majesty of the omnipotent hand, that impels the
storm and sends it reeling through the heavens,
are written in everlasting characters, in defiance of
the demonstrations of chemistry. " It is the Lord
that commandeth the waters, it is the glorious
God that maketh the thunder."
Calm again to-day, and soft as a Cuyp, but not
sunny, and (being sabbath) the Basque handker-
chief, flat and floating, the broad Arragonian hat,
the berret of Bigorre, the capulet and capuchon,
madrass of Gascony, and Paris bonnet, are all
afloat, and the bellowing tempest quite forgotten
in the re-assuring light of day. There is no rub-
ber-out like daylight ; wild dreams, wild fears,
dark thoughts and evil ones, — doubts, presages, all
are effaced by the application of a sunbeam, and
not, like the traces of a heavy pencil, doubtfully,
but fairly obliterated, and the blank surface re-
stored to its original whiteness.
Among the many groupes scattered about, is
LE SAINT SUAIRE. 351
one composed of an old blind man, his wife, and a
little boy, who have been chaunting litanies from
door to door since seven in the morning. I have
just made a penny purchase of one of their books
of marvels, a rare morsel, in which a firm belief in
the efficacy of the Saint Suaire (the holy winding-
sheet) is earnestly inculcated as the special means
of salvation ; and a hundred days 1 indulgence pro-
mised by Pope Clement VIII., whose word is not
a whit the less valid for his being dead upwards
of two hundred years, to all such as carry about
with them the precious pennyworth. Seven Pater
Nosters and seven Ave Marias, repeated seven
times in honour of the holy grave-cloth, procure
for the suppliant the power of delivering, at each
separate repetition, five souls out of purgatory, to
be chosen " a volonte 11 among such of his or her
deceased friends* as may be supposed entitled to
a place in the region of expiatory punishment.
Three orisons follow, simply and rather grace-
fully composed ; these it appears were found in
the holy sepulchre itself, and the assurance of their
sacred origin is given like a naked truth, without
any superfluous allegation, nothing to weaken the
* " Cinq ames de ses amis."
352 LE SAINT SUAIRF.,
force of internal evidence. The royal town of
Besancon glorifies in this precious relic : twice
every year it is exhibited to the faithful, when
those who are possessed with demons find (if they
be also believers) no difficulty in getting rid of
their turbulent inmates.
The canticles which follow, are all recitals of
miracles performed by the power of the Saint
Suaire; and legend -loving children will find
amongst them the story of their old friend the
Christian soldier, attacked near to the city of Bel-
grade by four Pagan robbers; who, perceiving that
he still lived, and even appeared unhurt, though
pierced through and through like a cullender,
became, as well they might, converted on the spot,
and remained ever after firm believers in the
miraculous virtues of the blessed winding-sheet, a
shred of which the invulnerable soldier always
carried about with him. The sale of this little
book is immense: every capulet, without exception,
lays down her penny; even the brown berrets
(especially the old ones) are active purchasers; and
open mouths, gaping like the beaks of hungry
birds, stretch and stiffen under the galvanic influ-
ence of astonishment.
AND ITS VIRTUES.
353
To this emotion of wonder succeeds (generally
speaking) the sentiment of perfect conviction, —
and here lies the danger. If the peasant believes
that, by merely possessing this little book, and
o-abbling over a certain number of prayers in a
certain given time, he can gain a hundred day's
indulgence for individual sin, and a sort of
omnipotence over the hereafter of his friends
into the bargain, his trust in the mercy of God
and the benefit of redemption becomes super-
fluous, and a good life a work of supererogation.
There is no bridle upon sin, for even if you should
die in the midst of it, your surviving friends can
at any time buy you out of your difficulties ; it is
but a penny and ten minutes' mumbling, and you
are cleared for paradise. A comfortable sop for
folks of an easy swallow ; but for those whose
mental subjection is still incomplete, and whose
reason rejects such childish fatuity, the very know-
ledge of such a faith is a push towards scepticism.
Many a man has fallen into unbelief, because he
could not command credulity; I mean many an
uninstructed one, for the action of enlightened
reason reinstates belief, should it have tottered,
by the effort with which it combats ignorance.
354 excursion: to lac de gaube.
Tuesday. The morning opened so deliciously,
with a soft air (not le vent cT Espagne, as the
shepherds call the hot wind that comes over the
mountains) and a sky full of golden promises, that
we felt ourselves beckoned to the Lac de Gaube in
a way too sweet and winning to be resisted. This
lake is the regular lion of the valley of Cauteretz,
and I believe the show lake of the Pyrenees, which
are deficient in that fine relief to mountain scenerv.
Our cavalcade consisted of four chairs, and sixteen
chairmen, each chair being provided with a relay of
bearers. The males of our party, disdaining to be
boxed up, went on horseback as far as they could ;
but it was only a snatch of luxury, for the path soon
became impracticable even for our mountain horses.
A little beyond the baths of the Ralliere, the road
to the Pont d'Espagne* turns to the right; and the
mountains, drawing nearer to each other, compress
the valley into a gorge, which opens strikingly with
a fine clustering of peaks. Two torrents, tearing
down from the right and left, boil over beds of
granite; and having made sundry rough noisy falls,
unite nearly at its entrance, and form the Gave,
* At the Pont d' Espagne commences the valley of
Marcadau, which leads to the Spanish mineral baths of
Penticouze.
MARVELLOUS CHAIRMEN. 355
which flows through the valley of Cauteretz. For
some time the road winds round and round the
mountain sides, overhanging the torrent or des-
cending to its roar ; then climbing up again into
the region of silence, seems to fly, not only from
the noise of man, but from the stir of nature. As
far as the last baths, and for some way farther, the
road is tolerably good; but soon after they are
passed, it continues fading away from road to
track, till its line is almost effaced amidst the rocky
fragments that are strewed about every where.*
How the chairmen manage to make their way,
Providence, who seems to have bestowed on them
the step and instinct of the izard, best knows.
Like that animal, they can balance themselves on
the point of a precipice; spring from one loose stone
to another, which appears to preserve its equili-
brium only by the transient pressure of the foot ;
run up perfectly smooth, and all but perpendicular
rocks, and down again with such rapidity, that
to sit steadily in the chair requires the aplomb of
a Dutch burgomaster; pick their way through
* The road is now greatly improved, and accessible for
horses as far as the Pont d'Espagne, even to the lake, for
the very bold. (1836).
356 SPANISH FANCIES.
granite fragments with the sagacity of an Andalu-
sian mule; poise their slight machine and its lading
on the edge of a precipice; hoist it in the air
over rocks, — and all this without jerk or stumble.
Nothing, indeed, can be more agreeable or less fa-
tiguing than the movement ; and the wonderful ac-
tivity and steadiness with which one is borne along,
gives immediate confidence even to the most timid.
Fine combinations of rock, fantastic in form but
always grand ; fore-ground of pines rich and dark,
with an underwood of glistening beech. Ascended
through groves of pine, noble ones, to the cascade
of the Ceriset: its first rush is bright and feathery,
and its arrowy flight through a chasm in the ver-
tical rocks whips up the fancy, and runs away with
it just as Don Gayferos did with the fair and faith-
ful Melisandra ; which comparison may appear far
fetched to those who have not the kingdom of
Arragon at the other side of the mountain, but
to those who have, comes as naturally as good day.
For my own part, I have done nothing since I
came here but run over, mentally, all the snatches
of Spanish story, all the recollections of Spanish
story-tellers, with which a memory indifferently
furnished, and more hearsay than reading, have sup-
MY ROCKING-HORSE. 357
plied me. If I have not talked, it is not because
I have not thought of them, but rather that I feel
the necessity of reining in my fancy ; and instead
of unwisely essaying a prance from Ruy Diez to
the 'Great Captain, 1 or a jerk from Lopez to
Yriarte, contenting myself with a quiet see-saw on
my rocking-horse (which after all is but a wooden
one) without thinking, like the knight of La
Mancha, that it is flying through the air ; while
others, whose eyes are not bandaged, can see that it
merely tilts up and down on the the same narrow
stripe of earth ; but as to flying, — " not a jot,
not a jot."
It is the Ceriset that flies along all the time, not
me ; and with that faithless constancy, still vanish-
ing yet present, which in brooks and floods is only
a moral lesson, though in a human being we might
call it deceit, and talk of false surfaces and under
currents. There is something of exceeding loneli-
r.ess in the noise of a waterfall ; it does not startle
like the cry of the wild bird in the wilderness ; it
is not angry or prophetic like its accusing or
mournful scream ; some, even, might call its burst
gay, (I speak of waterfalls, not cataracts); but to
me there is in its sullen music a constant grieving
358
A PAUSE AT THE CERISET.
sound, which, according with its solitary course,
makes harmony with the forests and the rocks, and
with the heart too. I love these voices of the
desert, — the bird, the flood, the wind in the holes of
the rocks, and seldom hear them without feeling
my mind carried back to scriptural images in their
grand and desolate beauty, or their grave and con-
tinuous sweetness.
At this moment an iris, the most visionary ob-
ject which nature offers to the sight, throws its
vague splendour over the Ceriset ; and from the
spot on which I sit inditing — not good matter, but
first impressions, the freshest always if not the
truest, — not a movement of life is visible, not a
sound heard but the rush of the waters, and the
crackling of the insect people hard at work in the
grass, the most summerish of all summer noises.
All but myself have run down the hill to look at
the first boil-over of the torrent ; and I have
taken a patch of dry moss for my seat, and have
just discovered that when we feel most, we do not
think, and that I have been sitting for the last ten
minutes with my eyes in the forest, plunged over
head and ears in one of those delicious reveries
that has not the fraction of a thought in it.
DREAMS INTERRUPTED. 359
I had just got so far, and shaking myself out
of my reverie, was still sitting on my bank, fan-
cying that such scenes as I then looked upon
might, with the help of a little Juan Fernandez
vegetation, have surrounded the cabin of Robinson
Crusoe, and thinking of the foot-print in the sand,
that fine and fearful incident to which genius has
given a solitary power, more awful in its singleness
than the war-whoop of an army of cannibals, when
up came a party of grumbling Toulousains, who
soon set me on my feet again, and drove me out
of my Indian solitude. Being alone when they
came down upon me, I felt awkward, and moved
off to a little distance, but could not put myself
out of hearing of the stentorian voice of a specu-
lating moralist, who contrived to make his ela-
borate praises of nature^ works, and of their
beautiful uses, end — I forget how — in the anticipa-
tion of fresh trout dtlicieusement savouree, which
appeared to await the party at the Lac de Gaube.
The graceful Ceriset put out all other falls till
we came to the Pont d'Espagne, which gives its
name to the valley, though many sparkle through
the dark pines in the interval, — as the Cascade des
Bousses, le Pas de FOurs, &c. ; one of which (I
360 PONT d'eopagxe.
think it is the Bousses) is very sweetly placed in
the middle of a low and rocky amphitheatre
covered with pines. Granite without its accompa-
nying desolation, patches of bright and flowery
turf, soft beech trees, and an abundant carpeting
of rhododendron ; innumerable rills fresh and clear,
that, bursting from the crevices in the rocks,
fall in soft showers on the turf; while the Gave,
in its quiet moments, ripples round little green
patches, that look as if they had been blown off
the sides of the mountains, and dropped into the
current with their roots downwards.
The cascades in this valley are not cataracts, —
a huge word, which belongs to Niagara and others
of those great river-falls, where the flood misses
footing and tumbles down in its whole breadth
and bulk from hill to valley. But the fall of the
Pont d'Espagne is bright and lonely, — splendid,
perhaps, after the first melting of the snows ; but
at present the upper part wants water, and the
precipitous stream seems (at its first leap) to cling
too closely to the surface of the rock over which it
descends. It is a sylvan fall, that looks as if it
had slipped over the rocks on its way from a forest
pilgrimage; full of picture, and happy in its sweet
PONT D KSPAGNE.
361
accompaniments of shade and solitude, and in a
sort of undressed wildness not too strongly marked
for its power and character, which an austere and
overbearing nature would have effaced, but enough
for beauty and dignity. Its great charm is a
certain presence of solitude, which almost tempts
One to fancy it a discovery ; its fault, perhaps, the
being seen too much in bits, — full, rushing,
sparkling bits ; but one does not know where to
look for the whole.
Higher up than the Pont d'Espagne the pine is
master. We ascended through a noiseless forest
amidst fine still trees, some erect and stately,
others prostrate as the storm had left them, or sus-
pended like rude bridges across the pathway, or
opening to make room for a patch of sunny turf,
covered with innumerable flowers. Some of the
trees were hung over with a white, fleecy moss,
probably the growth of many winters, that falls
from the points of the branches in long flakes
Descending to the lake, it becomes wild and dreamy
as a Highland superstition. The Vignemale,* fur-
* The Vignemale is the highest mountain of the French
Pyrenees ; the Maladetta— the loftiest of the whole chain —
being, as well as the Mont Perdu, on the Spanish side.
vol. I. R
362 LAC DE GAUBE.
rowed with glaciers, closes the gorge ; and though
still at a considerable distance, appears to rise
from the very borders of the Lac de Gaube, —
itself a mountain lake of wild and melancholy
aspect; still, and pure, and blue, as if it never
had been rippled by net or oar, or stirred by wind.
A fisherman's hut, on a gentle swell of green land,
and a fairy lawn at the southern end with a few
trees upon it, alone break the precipitous lines that
descend from the tops of the mountains, and hide
themselves in the waters. In some places there is
no room even for a foot-path, nor sign of life any
where but on the spot before the hut. No oar
glimmers on the bosom of the lake, no bird flies
over it, no summer leaf rustles on its bare shore ;
and yet, notwithstanding the cold glaciers, and the
bleak mountains, and the poverty of vegetation, it
is a gentle, rather than a savage scene: the in-
fluence of a southern climate is sensibly felt ; it is
visible in the colouring of the air, in the lights that
fall upon the water. In Switzerland, this little
lake would be called a pool, or perhaps passed
over entirely ; but here, where lakes have been
almost forgotten, it has slid into celebrity.
A flat boat, something between a canoe and a
LAC DE GAUBE.
363
box, is drawn up into a creek, and an old man sits
mending his nets beside it. The figure is of a
piece with the scene; but two saucy-looking women
who stand at the door of the hut, inviting us to
taste the trout of the lake, which they are said to
dress in perfection and to charge for exorbitantly,
spoil it a little, — but only a little ; for we turn our
backs upon them, and have found out a green
hillock of our own, where we sit musingly, or
in pleasant company with each other's thoughts,
looking into the deep waters, and up to the dark-
ening mountains, and listening to the little bursts
or heaves of sound that are not song, or speech, or
step; but which, in the deepest solitude of the forest
or the glen, break in upon the general silence of
nature.
As we returned homewards through the pine
woods, we stopped to look back upon the quiet
lake : it was in shadow, and evening had already
dropped upon its mountains; while a valley opening
from the west crossed them, with a line of light
that had a whole day of sunshine in it. The con-
trast was exquisite, so were the lights and shadows
that fell upon the pines ; the ground was covered
with wild pinks and other flowers, and the air
r 2
.'464 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS
full of sweetness. There were no birds : as even-
ing came I missed their whistle, the sweet Ave
Maria of the desert; brakes and bushes to build
and warble in abound, but they have no tenants.
There is something inexpressibly solemn in the
stillness of a wood at the close of day ; and the
pine tree, which has no light leaves to tremble
as the breeze passes over it, and whose stationary
darkness doubles that of evening, has something
visionary in its gloom that works magically on the
fancy. The air, the light, the shadows that pass
over the face of the heavens, seem subject to some
secret and mystical influence: it speaks in the pass-
ing wind, it descends from the mountains with the
last beams of the setting sun.
From the baths, where the world turns round
and leaves the silent valley to its solitude, to the
fisherman's hut on the banks of the lake, there is
not a single habitation ; not even a shed in which
a shepherd could find shelter. To this utter ab-
sence of the indications of life it is that this valley
owes the character of absolute loneliness which
constitutes (I think) its most especial charm ; it
looks like a glen in some uninhabited island of
the Pacific Ocean, exceeding green and sweet, but
OF EVENING. 365
which had never heard the mariner's song, or been
visited by the sail of the stranger.
There was a time, before my thoughts, my feel-
ings, my entire being was shared with others,
when to have passed the evening hours alone in
this wild valley would have been to me entire
delight. In my youth I loved few things so dearly
as a solitary walk in a still grove, or along a moon-
lit avenue ; how my thoughts moved forward with
my steps, how my steps tarried with my thoughts ;
how they flew along with the clouds, or reposed
in the still moonshine! The sky awakened, the
trees sheltered them ; the flowers that covered the
earth, the brooks that moistened it, the bird that
sang on the briar, caused a gentle excitement, a
soft stirring in the fancy, — pure as virtue, beneficent
as repose. It is all present to me at this moment,
and the tender and deep feeling with which I then
enjoyed such things is present with them.
It is three hours 1 walk, or rather trot, according
to the chairmen's step, from Cauteretz to the lake;
and two hours and a half to return. Our caval-
cade entered the village gaily, and found a circle
formed round two dancing children, one of whom
had prodigious vigour, and the other more beauty
366
FINE GOLD AND HARDEJt METAL.
than I have seen for many a day, — quite a dream
of a creature, so delicately put together, all of fine
gold, and with a soft, easy, half shy, half confident
grace, and a look of birth, which — if not rubbed
out by vulgar contact before she grows up to girl-
hood, will provoke many a fanciful conjecture.
Poor thing ! it was sad to see so pretty and so
helpless a being in training for such a trade ; but
childhood is not prescient, and she had a happy
careless air, as if her dancing-dog life was one of
joy and indulgence. It gave me pleasure to hear
that the man who fiddled for these children was
their father, and to see that a decent-looking woman
made one of the troop, and caressed the living
flower as if she really was her mother, — not her
kidnapper. The elder, too, came in for her full
share of encouragement, and, her professional talent
being evidently the most promising, had consider-
ably more spangles on her petticoat than the
beauty; who, while her sister cut fours with sur-
prising agility, tottered on her little feet, made
false steps, and looked so graceful, and so exces-
sively happy while she did so, that one could not
help fancying, that with more talent she would
have had less charm.
POLITICS AT CAUTERETZ. 367
CHAPTER XX.
POLITICS AT CAUTERETZ PATRIOTS, REAL AND IMA-
GINARY HIDDEN TREASURES— A WAY TO GET AT THEM
— THE GHOST SEER — THE CHASE — DAY-BREAK NOISES
— THE CRY OF THE HOUNDS — MUSIC AND PAINTING
COMPARED — THE TAMBOURIN AND THE BALLADE OF
BIGORRE — IDLENESS WITHOUT VICE— THE BALLOON.
As every niche has its political affair, every glass
of water its tempest,* Cauteretz, not to be behind
hand with other places, would provoke fate a
little ; and so at the last ball a few white lilies were
stuck round the sconces, and two or three cava-
liers wore the same insignia in their button-holes.
When lo ! pounce came the mayor, chief grocer of
the district, and with 'one fell swoop' mowed them
all down like Macduff's chickens. Then it was
bruited that the opposition party was to make
manifest at the old Cercle, and that we were likely
* Frederick the Great used to say, that when he heard
of the trouhles of the Republic of Geneva, he always
thought of u tempest in a glass of water.
368
POLITICS AT CAUTERttZ.
to have a little political gladiatorship, just a slight
show up of fealty to old blood and old usages from
the Huons of Bordeaux, and a retort courteous,
or otherwise, from the men of the day, — i. e. those
who consider themselves as going along with the
moral, intellectual, and political movement of the
times; and who look upon an old dynasty in the
same light as an old glove, curious as a memorial,
if a great hand has worn it, but otherwise as a
thing that has outlived its uses, and may be thrown
aside. While the new one, be it of kid, doe, or
even bear-skin with the rough side outwards, bag-
shaped like a child's frost-glove, curtailed like a
mitten, or any thing, in short, except the old regular
four-finger and thumb cut, is always pronounced
a good fit and a beautiful bit of stitching, unless
it chance (as sometimes happens) to burst in the
trying on.
But what may have been brewing can never
now be known, for the sudden apparition of the
prefet dressed in official frowns and frac, at once
threw terror into the hearts of the ex's and the
antiV I do dot know whether he cried out,
"Holloa, masters! what's here to do?" or
treated the matter with judicial gravity, but I saw
PATRIOTS.
369
him doing Jove between the two proprietors of the
York and Lancaster Cercles, who both looked as
if caught in some petty larceny ; and thus ended
the show of opinion and its diversities, meditated
by the adverse parties of Cauteretz.
The present French seem decidedly averse to
political repose; peace seems to them like servitude,
or at best an acknowledgment of weakness. They
resemble the invalid whose irritable nerves forbid
all stationary comfort, who cries " turn me on my
right side," and is no sooner obeyed than he moans
to be turned again upon the left, on which he lies
but for a moment when he desires to be placed in
an upright position. Besides, they begin already
to discover, or imagine, that they have been playing
at a round game, in which the stakes are general,
but the pool belongs only to one. There are
several Carlists here, and a few gentlemen patriots,
not many : gentlemen sometimes prefer waiting
till the sentiment of patriotism has taken its
station ; or drop it, when the greasy rogues who
call themselves the people start up to act upon
their principles. Inherent aristocrats are likely,
from the circumstances of their education and
early impressions, to make unsteady patriots, (tak-
r 3
3J0 PATRIOTS,
irig the word in its popular sense,) though believ-
ing themselves, and often being, very sincere ones.
The bold and sublime sound of the word liberty,
the present excitement, the always hoped for and
sometimes immediate fame, the " loud applause
and aves vehement" of the people, enthral ardent
natures,— I do not speak of glorious ones, — and
flatter such as have been pampered, perhaps
goaded, into irritability, and who believing them-
selves reformers, are only malcontents. The patriot
aristocrat of such mould and shaping, is staunch
to the general outline; but the details offend his
nice susceptibilities, his patrician blood rises up
against the too close freedom of the vulgar tribune,
and the shabby strong-minded varlets who would
go halves with him, soil his imagination by their
contact. The most arrogant practical aristocrats
are often theoretical liberals : query, — are they
likely to be sincere ones ? Charles the Tenth used
to say, that there were only two men in Europe
who had never changed their political opinions,—
himself and Lafayette.
It is easy to say, " Let man be free, let all be
equal sharers in the open patrimony of freedom ; "
but when plebeian Jack or Dick starts up at the
REAL AND IMAGINARY. 371
call, and rubs his greasy skirts against the delicate
doublet of the privileged, then liberalism stiffens
into arrogance, and all the indigenous feelings
which the vanity of political chieftainship, or the
purer sense of political right, has subdued for the
time being, work upwards, and re-appear upon the
surface. Of the glorious nature, of what it feels,
dares, would suffer, for the sake of that, — be it
throne or people, which it holds sacred, I say
nothing, feeling that the sentiment of reverence
lies too deep for words.
This morning, as I returned from the springs,
my chairmen overtook some persons who were con-
versing gravely ; and as we kept side by side for
some time, I heard, without intending it, all that
passed between them. The principal orator was
an odd-looking man, decently but rather singularly
dressed; he spoke apparently with reference to a
portion of earth which he held in his hand, and
which he said contained a certain quantity of gold.
None knew (he added) the riches of the Pyrenees ;*
there were streams issuing from their bosom that
ran gold, and mines hidden within them of inex-
* Marca quotes Strabo as an authority for the existence
of gold mines in the mountains of Labour, and the Basse
Navarre.
3J2 HIDDEN TREASURES.
haustible wealth : to say nothing of the treasures
which the Moors had buried in their entrails, and
which we daily trod upon without being aware of
their neighbourhood.
He was listened to with great attention, — I
thought credulity ; and his reasoning, yet enthu-
siastic manner, seemed favourable to quackery,
could there have been any inducement to its exer-
cise in this out-of-the-way place. I have seen him
pass since, but cannot make out who he is ; per-
haps a charlatan, perhaps a visionary, yet not
singular in his opinion (here at least), though
strikingly so in his manner of expressing it. The
belief in hidden treasure is (I am told) as general
at this side of the Pyrenees as in the kingdom of
Grenada itself.
The same belief prevails in Ireland among the
people, and many an idler forsakes her wheel to
" scratch for the gould 9 n — to use the phrase of a
half mad, half cunning woman, whom 1 once met
with in an Irish hut; and who gravely assured me
that she was sometimes out with the good people,
as she called the fairies, for days together, and
knew of certain means by which the treasures of
the Catholics could be discovered. "But the dark
THE GHOST-SEER. 373
man is there (she said), sitting upon a stone close
by; and if the moon shines upon your pickaxe, the
Lord have mercy on your soul ! for the first stroke
of it will be for your own grave."
To this she added, that it was to her intimacy
with the dead that she owed her knowledge of
their secrets, and very liberally offered to instruct
me in a mode of throwing the head suddenly back ;
by which movement, accompanied by certain mys-
terious words, ghosts might be raised at any time.
She had spent the night (and she said it boastingly)
in the company of the dead; upon which the family
of the cabin turned up their eyes with a sorrowful
believing look, at once expressive of compassion
and awe. One of them, a beautiful Spanish-look-
ing girl, whose eyes shone as if there were lights
behind them, told me afterwards, that those who
had the mark upon them for ghost-seeing, were
bad people who had not come round to the church,
and were tormented ; their sufferings (she said)
were terrible; and added, that the woman had
staid all night with them, for they dared not refuse
her a shelter; and that she and her people had
made a noise like the howling of the last day.*
* Verbatim.
374 DAY-BREAK NOISES.
I do not know what people go after here in the
shooting way, — nothing I believe that they ever
come up with, for I have not seen even a brochette
since we arrived here;* but a vast deal of business
is done among the echoes. When I hear a shot in
the distance, I often think of England, and of the
cheerful images connected with its autumn scenery.
A woman's life in a sporting establishment is not
perhaps, at all times, a pleasant one ; yet I know
few women who have not loved the associations,
and felt interested in the hazards of the anxious
and exciting chase; who do not remember with a
sort of affection the early call at break of day,
when the shrill sudden whistle, the preparatory
chirp, the stir of leaves, the lowing of cattle, the
call of the huntsman, the answer of the hounds —
deep-mouthed and musical, and all the mingled
sounds from bush, brake, field, and farm-yard,
salute the light with their many-tongued " good-
morrow ;" and while the bees are bustling in the
honev-beds, and the mavis and laverock still
hymning their pretty matins, are all suddenly
effaced by that true chorus of hilarity — the cry of
* The season for bear and izard hunting-, is the early
spring or autumn.
CRY OF THE HOUNDS. 3J5
the hounds. A cry so full of health, cheerfulness,
sport impatient to begin, and gay defiance, that no
other combination of sounds, however skilfully ar-
ranged, can produce the same effect upon the mind.
All out-of-doors enjoyment, every thing that
brings us nearer to nature, has charm in it. I can
thoroughly comprehend how the chase might be-
come a passion, if it were not for its cruelty, — all
Methodism, a Di Vernon of nineteen once said to
me, and wondered how a reasonable woman could
talk such stuff. But, stuff or not, the thought of
the poor hunted animal is always a stumbling-
block in the way of my sporting propensities.
We have little music here; the peasants do not
sing as they work in the fields, nor the women as
they sit before their doors at evening : there are
no horns in the forest, or wild voices in the glens,
at least that I have heard. Even if the pipe of
the shepherd be silent, one expects the music of
song : song accords so naturally with the feelings,
pleasures, and occupations of a country life, that
the ear longs for it, and is disappointed at its
absence. Did ever pastoral poet fill the mind with
such a sweet succession of country images as are
awakened by the rantz des vaches, when it conies
376 MUSIC AND PAINT! KG
in the stillness of a summer's evening, floating
downwards from the hills, and filling the valleys
below with its wild melody? I miss it here; I miss
the sad and simple music of the Irish glens, and
Highland valleys ; I miss the Alp-horn with its
day-break sound and mountain associations, and
listen — with regret that it should have hitherto
been in vain — for the sweet airs of the mountain
Pyrenees, of which I had such charming anticipa-
tions. They are sung (we are told) at the winter
fire-side gatherings: but I do not hear them at the
cabin door or in the open field, as I had hoped to do.
No one honours the art of painting more than
I do. Few feel more intensely the outdrawing
effect of its power on the mind, the memory, and
the imagination, its sway over time and space, and
the magic skill with which it reproduces, in seem-
ingly unchecked dimensions, all that nature has
made of sublime, or fair, or wonderful ; embalm-
ing, by other and more precious means than the
swathes and spices of Egypt, the body — with the
mind in it — of all that genius and virtue have made
great, or beauty lovely ; imaging for each a cha-
racter of scenery, a period of time, a sphere of
action in harmonious consonance with the leading:
COMPARED. 377
object, and endowing the whole with the rich and
adequate expression which almost becomes move-
ment as art pours life into it. Yet, even with the
great debt of individual enjoyment which I owe to
painting on my memory, I still feel that music
addresses itself more directly, not only to the
emotions of the heart, but also to the higher facul-
ties of the mind.
Many, I know, think otherwise, and some have
talked of music as fuelling crime ; others will have
it that the love of music is often found in vicious
natures, citing Nero, Charles the Ninth, and
Foulques, the terrible bishop of Toulouse — him-
self a troubadour (and from choice) in early life,
as examples. Shakspeare, that great master of
the secrets of man's nature, was of a different
opinion; so have been other pure and exalted
spirits, and many pious ones, who have found com-
fort in it. Music may sometimes enervate, but
how often does it elevate, inspire, console, and
soothe the turbulent passions into calm ? saddening
sometimes, but rather with tender than with bitter
sorrow ; leading often to acts of heroism or piety,
never, I believe, to base or cruel ones. Sad music
enters into the soul, bringing thought with it ;
378 MUSIC AND PAINTING
bright music fuses thought into fancy, without
destroying its power. A true lover of music feels
its absence as a loss of nourishment to the deep
and fine-toned faculties of the mind; and missing
the voice in which man emulates the seraph, or the
combination of sounds so subtly blended that
the effect seems pure and unelaborate singleness,
thanks even the wren for its chirp ; but if it be
the lark that sings, gives out his soul to be lifted
skyward on its melody.
Painting embodies thought, but however sub-
limely, still by known images : music awakens it,
but leaves it to incarnate its own fancies. The
altar-piece is RaffaeuVs ; the majesty of holiness,
the sanctity of innocence, the entireness of sacrifice
is in it ; gloriously designated, but by familiar
symbols. The Miserere is Allegri's; the soul
drinks in its till then unknown harmonies, and
for the moment believing them celestial, detaches
itself from bondage, and soaring upwards, loses its
identity in the fellowship of angels.
In one point, however, painting has an im-
mense superiority. Music has no means of per-
petuating material images ; of setting before us in
actual and almost living freshness the distant land-
COMPARED, 379
scape, the unknown sea, the trackless desert ; of
bringing us into familiar contact with the illus-
trious or imaginary dead ; and more, of giving
back, at least, the effigies of those whom the grave
has closed upon. Sweet and precious privilege !
worth to the fond and sorrowful heart all the rest
put together. Another gigantic advantage ; Raf-
faelle embodied his own conceptions, but Handel is
dependent on the executive powers of others, and
liable to be disfigured by them.
It so happens that, while I write, the sound of
instruments comes from a distance, with the slow
approach of a procession. Yesterday a public
dinner took place here, in commemoration of the
great days of July; and now the chairmen, who
have been banqueting in the Pare at the expense
of the patriots, are dancing along the street, pre-
ceded by the national colours, to the tuneless music
of a whistling fife and squeaking fiddle. The
fifer holds another instrument (somewhat lyre-
shaped) within the affectionate embrace of his left
arm ; while, with the same hand, he applies the
galoubet to his lips, striking all the time upon the
six-stringed* machine with a small stick which he
* Or four, I am not sure which.
'380 THE TAMBOURIN AND
holds in the right, and which produces a weak
imperfect sound, inaudible at a small distance.
This instrument is the ancient tambourin of Beam,
(the tambour de Basque, which we call tambourine,
is not in use here,) and to its faint music the
chairmen dance along in most monotonous mea-
sure; first following each other one by one, like a
regular file of ducks, then turning round with a
kind of deliberate whisk, and when solidly arranged,
each couple face to face, cutting — what they pro-
bably call capers, with a weight of limb and a
gravity of deportment in perfect consonance with
the sad sameness of their music ; while a few dis-
engaged balladins, scattered about at intervals,
rattle small flags over the heads of their more
agile comrades.
This dance is the ancient ballade of Bio-orre.
and, as a national one, the least interesting I have
ever seen The spirited pantomime of the Rous-
sillionais, the expressive bolero, swimming waltz,
and clattering mazourka, all speak ; so do many
others, — the tarantella in Greek poetry, historical
as the frescoes of Pompeii, the Highland reel in
a pleasant mountain measure, fresh and heathy,
and even the Irish jig, though less graceful and
THE BALLADE OF BIG0RRE. 381
dramatic than the dances of the south, and less
buoyant than the merry ones of Scotland, has its
own distinctive character; a quality in which the
ballade is peculiarly deficient. But they are not
without Irish qualities here, though they may not
be dancing ones ; the Bigorrais, like the Irish
peasant, " se soult moult tristement ;" yet I should
not say " se soult," for he does not get drunk, he
only indulges to mournful measure. Singing (as
I have already remarked) is rarely heard; but
when it does interrupt talk, it is the true chro-
naune which the genuine Irish howl over their
dead, or their beer-cups.
Perhaps the dance, of which I have spoken so
lightly, may be of Greek or Phoenician origin ; a
Bacchic vestige, or a Phrygian mystery, full of
classical affinities to an antiquarian, but Hebrew to
a modern of my calibre. At all events, it helps to
amuse the humbler classes of water-drinkers, who
being separated from their habitual occupations,
and having nothing to do but to stroll about and
knit stockings, run out from all quarters if but a
dog barks. I never saw a much idler population,
all — not flying, — but sauntering away from them-
selves, and trying to lose the sense of their own
382 IDLENESS WITHOUT VICE.
identity and the burthen of the present hour, in
any futility that presents itself. How we fight
for and against oblivion { toiling to forget, and
labouring not to be forgotten !
And yet idleness, the acknowledged mother of
mischief, does not seem to be followed here by
any of her brood. Even temptation fails to make
rogues ; and the open door, freely entered by all
the ambulating traders who ply about, from the
Toulouse grisette to the capuleted matron, who
with her distaff in her apron-string, offers her small
bundle of worsteds for sale, leads to no ill results.
It would be vain to expect that the primitive
simplicity of pastoral life, with its confined horizon
of wants and wishes, should be found intact in a
frequented watering-place, that receives annually
within its bosom its full complement of the straw
and chaff which float upon the surface of society.
But if the peasant of Bigorre be not now as simple
and ungrasping (I mean the peasant in the neigh-
bourhood of the baths) as before his springs were
convicted of healing, he has still many excellent
qualities- A drunken man is very seldom encoun-
tered, a quarrelsome one still more rarely ; nor
have I heard of any act of violence or aggression,
THE BALLOON. 383
(things of such common occurrence in rural com-
munities,) or even of the slightest affray, since we
have been in the country.
The peasants of the valley of Cauteretz are a
quiet people, without any show whatever of gaiety,
habitual or occasional, that I have seen. Spanish
rather than French in the staidness of their deport-
ment, but French in their love of talking, — such of
them at least as are brought together here, and
stow sociable. Remarkably less vivacious than
their countrymen in general, (who it must how-
ever be said, though light of speech, are far more
serious than we give them credit for being,) still
talk is balm to them — here as elsewhere; and the
constant stream of tongues, uninterrupted by other
noises, runs on without ceasing while there is a
streak of light in the heavens.
It is almost night now, and a poor pelican of the
wilderness, who has been flapping his soiled wings
for the amusement of the idle, retires to make room
for an illuminated balloon, which at this moment is
detached from the ground amidst the shouts and
raptures of a crowd, who express their delight with
southern enthusiasm, forgetting in the excitement
of the moment their habitual tranquillity. It is a
384 THP; BALLOON.
pretty scene : the anxious gazers form a circle of
many tier deep; the first row entirely composed of
peasant children — chiefly girls — in their small
scarlet capulets, like so many red riding-hoods,
wondering at something pleasanter than a great
wide-mouthed wolf; and the others of rainbow
madrasses, subdued by the grave brown of the
shepherd's bonnet. Apart from the close press are
some ladies mounted on chairs, and here and there
a good-humoured papa holding up his bantling at
arm's length above the crowd ; while all around
are female faces full of anxious expectation, not
thickset-heads over shoulders, as in a town show,
but stretched out at intervals, one from a window,
two from a balcony, a fourth tiptoe-ing on a curb-
stone ; while a group of three travesty the graces
on a crockery-ware vendor's cart, whose merchan-
dise still glistens on the pavement " a. la triste
lueur du suif."
In small places, curiosity seizes with eagerness
on every casual recreation which presents itself,
sifting the chaff of amusement, and not even dis-
daining the red-jacketed monkey, or the humours
of the illustrious Punch. The balloon is a court-
ball, a gala-opera — at least for the capulets, and a
THE BALLOON. 385
pretty sight for all; it rises steadily and gracefully
from the centre of the circle, hung with lights
which, as it makes slow progress upwards, illu-
minate the group below ; and full in view of its
ascent comes the slower moon, just appearing above
the brim of the horizon and casting its poetical
gleam over the dark and silent hills, that seem to
acquire increase of height and a finer character of
loneliness as its sweet and solemn light falls upon
them. But who cares about the moon ? only my-
self, perhaps ; all are too intent on the balloon to
know whether she plays orb or crescent ; all watch
its upward progress with earnest and simple inte-
rest, and frequent and exulting shouts, and loud
clapping of hands, and every possible demonstra-
tion of jov and wonder.
Perhaps it is their first balloon ; at all events,
Mongolfier , s first ascension, when the spectators
embraced each other and wept, and felt as if a path
had been opened to the heavens, could hardly have
been hailed with more enthusiasm.
VOL. I.
386 CONVERSATIONAL POWERS,
CHAPTER XXI.
CONVERSATIONAL POWERS, AND THEIR VALUE — GREAT
MEN OFTEN GREAT TALKERS FINE TALKERS SOME-
TIMES BAD WRITERS, AND WHY.
How the French can talk — that is, when they are
in the mind, (and they are always so, if not dis-
pleased with their company) : nothing comes amiss
to them, — grave, gay, and the intervening placid,
are all slipped into, and out of, with the same envi-
able facility. I once knew a person, a young and
pretty girl, who possessed a very remarkable talent:
she would open a book, read the table of contents,
run over two or three lines in one part, two or
three more in another, then throw it by ; and the
next day, when it happened to be the subject of
conversation, discuss its merits and demerits, not
only with what seemed an adequate knowledge of
each, but almost analytically.
The French appear to possess this singular
faculty, — not that I would by any means accuse
AND THEIR VALUE. 387
them of being particularly superficial talkers, but
because they do talk so well and so readily on all
subjects, however foreign to their tastes, habits, or
occupations, however beyond (I speak now of the
humbler classes) their apparent means of instruc-
tion, or removed from the ordinary contemplation
of their minds, that one almost imagines them
gifted with an instinct of speech. A Frenchman
seldom makes his head a grave to bury thoughts
in,* but a repository from which he sends them
out ready winged. A visit which we received this
morning, has set their conversational talents — for-
gotten since we left Paris — suddenly before us; and
with it, their exquisite tact in detecting false pre-
tensions in others. If politeness was ever suffi-
ciently influential in France to induce clever peo-
ple to tolerate prosing ones, it assuredly is not
so now ; the French are fearful sifters of false
claims, and inflict more pain by the fine-pointed
weapons of mockery and inattention, than others
do by the broad-sword of hostility. Perhaps they
may set too much value on colloquial talent, and
we too little, — I do not mean as to the enjoyment
* "I make not therefore ray head a grave, but a treasure
of knowledge."— Religio Medici.
s 2
388 GKEAT MEN
we receive from it, or the accueil which it procures
for its possessor ; but as to our general apprecia-
tion of the character of mind to which it belongs.
With us the idea often prevails, that distinguished
talkers are rarely persons of genius, profound
thinkers, or eminent writers, but, like some elo-
quent pulpit orators of whom we have heard, dis-
course better than they print — a mistake, certain-
ly ; witness Burke, Johnson, Voltaire, Sheridan,
Madame de Stael, and many others. And then
the living examples, bright ones and undeniable,
immediately called to mind.*
After all, great conversational powers must pro-
ceed from great fulness of mind ; one cannot draw
constantly or suddenly except from an overflowing
source, ready to answer all demands made upon it,
or scatter the riches of one's mind to be gathered
up, and even appropriated, by all who listen,
* What voices have since gone down into silence ! Cole-
ridge and Charles Lamb !— great spirits both, and not the
less delightful as talkers for being so. Mackintosh, too,
whose rich and varied powers of mind were brought
so beautifully into action by the warm glow of social
intercourse; and Sharp, whose wisdom, great practical
knowledge, unerring judgment, and manly diction, came
blended to the ear through the medium of a voice remark-
able for its fulness and melody.
OFTEN FINE TALKERS. 389
unless there be an inexhaustible vein at hand into
which the spade may go " deeper and deeper still."
A fine talker (I do not mean the daily reporters
who fly about from house to house, like penny-
postmen, dropping their bulletins) speaks from the
exuberance of his ideas, and continually strikes
out new ones as he is carried along by their force ;
and yet to this eminently endowed person we find
the higher faculties of the mind often denied by
prejudice, and merely (as it would seem) because
he can afford to wear fine broad-cloth every day,
having enough in his stores to renew the suit as
the nap wears off.
It is true that there exist persons who can con-
verse delightfully, and even originally, and yet who
cannot put together twenty comprehensible lines ;
gifted persons, too, in their power of taking the
ear and charming it. I once heard a foreign lady
surprise, enthral, bewitch, by her rapidity of
thought, and beautiful odd way (the way of her
own, which so few people have,) of giving it utter-
ance. " Why don't you write ?" some one said ;
" you could make such a book, and that even of
your every-day talk." — " I never could do any
390 SOMETIMES BAD WRITERS.
thing with my pen," was the answer, and the exact
truth. She wrote like a half-mad washerwoman.
In such cases, the want is not of mind, nor. even
of genius, but of the faculty of concentration, and
the habit of arrangement. It is the power of squan-
dering that makes the spendthrift : the same funds
under more provident management would yield —
not perhaps the rapid and seducing interest of im-
mediate applause, but the constant and augmenting
revenue of permanent approval. There are many
who can afford to fling their flowers about full
handed, not caring on whose heads they fall, and
never missing them out of the heaps from which
the chymist mind extracts its most precious essence ;
but who, loving their idle glow and scattered pro-
fusion, will not sit down to form them into wreaths,
or search for a thread to bind them with.
And so ends digression and simile — and chapter
with them.
GORGE OF LUZ. 391
CHAPTER XXII.
GORGE AND BASIN OF LUZ — LUZ TO BAREGES — BAREGES —
ITS POPULATION AND ITS SPRINGS — ST. SAUVEUR —
OPENING OF THE VALLEY OF GAVARNIE — THE BRIDGE
OF SIA — GEDRO AND ITS GROTTO — BENEFIT OF IGNO-
RANCE — VALLEY OF HEAS, AND ITS SHRINE — PILGRIMS
AND FILGRIMAGES — THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS — HOW
TO JUDGE OTHERS.
I recollect the time when I rather thought that
Bareges was the whole Pyrenees. I had never
heard much of any other place within their range,
except perhaps Bagneres, over whose humbler pre-
tensions the European reputation and sovereignty in
gun-shot wounds of the former, gave it a most de-
cided superiority. We are just returned from the
grey ravine that holds this melancholy spot in its
bosom to dine at Luz, which we intend to make
our head-quarters for two or three days.
To get from Cauteretz to Bareges, Pierretitte
must of course be passed; it holds the keys of
both valleys, which are separated by a lofty moun-
392 GORGE OF LUZ.
tain, and run in a parallel direction. The close
gorge that leads to Luz is eminently picturesque:
it opens gracefully, with a soft Italian colouring,
and a grey bridge of one arch thrown over its bab-
bling river ; but soon narrows into a wooded defile
of a wild and romantic character, lonely and deep,
with that solemn colouring which belongs to a close
rocky gully, a narrow horizon, and a turbulent
torrent wrestling with silence, but not conquering
its universal influence.
The road through this gorge is considered as
an almost marvellous achievement, the difficulties
which opposed its progress considered ; it is an ex-
cellent road, and makes way for itself very ingeni-
ously, sometimes clinging to the rocks at one side,
then sliding down from them at another ; now
carried over the frequent bridge — always of the
simple arch of grey stone, — then following the
bend of the torrent, and finding just room enough
between its bed and the perpendicular heights for
an unobstructed passage. There is great tender-
ness of colouring, notwithstanding its iron-streaked
rocks, and a certain poetry of loneliness about this
scene that speak a language not unknown to the
heart, — a musical language full of sweet notes and
BASIN OF LUZ. 393
gentle pauses, that talk to it of its old dreams, its
gone-by, but ever-dear illusions, as the winter sun-
beams do of the light of summer.
But presently the defile opens, widening gra-
dually into a valley, and becomes perhaps more
common-place — that is, Pyrenean common-place,
which would be the fine-fine of other landscapes,
and the basin of Luz offers its soft expanse to
charm and surprise (as it never fails to do) by its
gracious magic. Scarcely any spot in the whole
Pyrenees is so praised, so Eden'd as this is ; and
for that very reason it was, perhaps, that I felt dis-
appointed. It is a green basin, the surface gently
diversified and watered by innumerable rills, plea-
santly and beautifully surrounded, — grandly too,
by mountains that gather hamlets on their culti-
vated sides, and overtop them with their boldly
indented summits. It is very green, and very
lovely, — fertile, fresh, and quiet; but hardly, I
think, the downright paradise that it is called, — at
least, after my old Paradise Lost notions. It has
not the exquisite lawny uplands so beautifully
frequent in the Pyrenees, nor are the trees so full
and branching; but, on the contrary, too often
(just now at least) stripped and sticky.
s 3
394 LUZ TO BAREGES.
Rested our horses at Luz, the humble chef lien
of the valley. A very decent inn, (Cazeau's,) where
we secured beds, ordered dinner, and looked out of
a dull window. The show things of Luz are a
church, old and fortress-like, with the traces of a
small door by which alone the proscribed race of
cagots were permitted to enter, and which is now-
blocked up; and a ruin, (a beautiful bit of colour-
ing,) as old as the time of the Templars, called Le
Chateau de Sainte Marie, once in possession of the
English ; and which, though invalided, still seems
to guard the entrance of the valley of Bastan — the
real valley of Bareges.
The road up this valley from Luz to Bareges
is a continued ascent through a gorge of indif-
ferent reputation in point of beauty, but very
fresh, and green, and — I thought — sweet, at its
opening, and indeed for a considerable way up.
Ash, alder, poplar, and other river trees of light
and open foliage, are gracefully clumped on the
abrupt banks that close in the road to the right,
and variegate the more barren sides of the opposite
mountains, greatly helping to soften the angry
aspect of the Gave. This same Gave is a wicked
rover, that hubble-bubbles at a furious rate over
LUZ TO BAREGES. 395
the huge blocks of granite which it has unearthed
in its winter vagaries, and dragged along with it
by main force. Wonderful gushing of clear water
through the fissures in the rocks and the gulleys
in the meadows, under the road and over the road ;
turned here by a slate and there by a stone, every
petulant thread whirling its plaything of a mill,
and then throwing itself into the Gave as if it were
its mother's arms. On an ill-humoured day, all
this may be as dreary as report makes it ; but with
this morning's sky of glory on it, it was charming.
Trees scattered about every where, — not perhaps
of the best kind, but still trees, and prettily crest-
ing the hills with their light flexible branches,
which are neither deficient in shade or freshness.
In short, all the desolation seemed to us to be-
long to the immediate rent in the rocks in which
Bareges itself is placed. Yet even there, the
heights to the left throw out from their furrowed
flanks a green ledge beautifully undulated, swel-
ling and sinking, and on every swell a cottage in
its natural bower, forming a sequency of sweet and
graceful miniatures. But the Gave and its con-
nexions make angry winter work here, and their
summer traces are no better than devastation. At
396 BAREGES, ITS
every step, as we approach the village of Bareges,
the scene grows greyer and more stony, and all the
more cheerless for the sort of bleak life which the
sullen roar of the waters confers upon it. The
place itself is little more than a military hospital
in a naked ravine, with an infirmary at one end
and a grave-yard at the other; an angrv nature,
barren and undignified, closes in upon it ; but were
it a paradise, the sight of so many sick and wound-
ed would overshadow it with gloom ; the poor
soldiers lying along the benches with death in their
wan eyes, trying to warm their languid limbs in
perhaps their last sunbeam, form a mournful con-
trast to any gaiety afforded by the amusements of
the Cercle. Othello's tender and passionate fare-
well to the "pride, pomp, and circumstance of
glorious war," may quicken young pulses; but
the after day ! the sick waggon and the hospital !
Bareges seems not to have made much way since
the time when Madame de Maintenon conducted
her ailing pupil the Duke de Maine to make trial
of its springs, and so brought it into fashion. It
had then but one habitation ; now it has one street,
and that partly of wooden houses, which are staved
at the approach of winter, and lotted up for the
POPULATION AND SPRINGS. 397
next summer's service. It must be good stone
work to stand the torrents, and avalanches, and
rock-rollings that make the desert echo in the dark
months. Two or three pallid-looking officers
lounged about, and two or three ringleted heads
looked out at the windows, — a small gathering,
though they say the place is crowded, and chiefly
with English ; but the ladies ride out in the
morning, and the gentlemen, such at least as are
in exercising condition, explore ; and have the op-
portunity of doing so in a country of beauty and
romance, which we are told exists within a very
short distance of this lifeless region. A trivial
circumstance adds a shade to the gloom of Bareges :
the dress of the peasant women is oftenest black,
and the fashion of binding their slatternly mob-
caps round their heads with a broad ribbon of the
same funereal hue, gives them a dismal air. The
bath chairs, too, look like hospital-sedans for cho-
lera patients, — close box, colour grey, and loop-
hole windows.
But if these springs in the desert do really per-
form the wonders ascribed to them ; if they indeed
bring healing to those who have been cast out from
other sources of health and helps to life, as too
398 ST. SAUVEUR.
far gone even for hope ; then indeed are their
waters blessed, and even their barren landscape
made beautiful to the feeble who have found
strength in its rugged bosom, after having sought
for it in vain amidst the glow and perfume of a
more inviting nature.
The descent from Bareges to Luz we thought
very striking ; all mountain descents are so, more
or less. The trees which seem to cling to the hills
in ascending, are thrown out from them, and the
folds of the hills stand apart from each other
in different degrees of light. It is true that in
going up, the great heights are generally in view,
giving shade and grandeur to the distance, and
that often in returning we leave the loftiest attri-
butes of majesty behind ; but here the descent
is against the dark screen that rises out of the
plains of Luz. Going up, the meagre, pale per-
spective is before us ; coining down, the grand and
dark one, — and so lighted up to-day ! such exces-
sive beauty in the heavens, and let down from
thence upon the earth, that common things look
like effects of magic.
The baths of St. Sauveur (a very short walk
from Luz) are much frequented ; by some they
ST. SAUVEUR. 399
are considered as a necessary preparation for the
more powerful ones of Bareges, and used by
others as a kind of weaning process after them.
The village is exquisitely placed just at the open-
ing of the gorge that leads to Gavarnie. It
consists of a single street of handsome houses, with
as much marble displayed upon their outsides as
can be managed in a plain way. These houses are
disposed along the ledge of a green mountain,
with a wild look down upon the clear and rapid
Gave of Gavarnie, as it hurries along through
rocky and abrupt banks richly tufted. Soft lawns
and branching trees overlook its courses; and
baths, with a marble peristyle and an air of oriental
luxury, rise above it. More beautiful than Cau-
teretz, more beautiful indeed than any thing that
I know of in its way, but not so cheerful.
Slept at Luz, and were up with the birds : all in
movement at five o'clock in spite of a thick fog on
the hill tops — a bad omen, our guide thought; but
we despised it, and took the road a little after six
for the valley of Gavarnie. Some people on hear-
ing any thing indiscreetly praised, feel piqued into
opposition ; this was certainly not our case, for we
set off' prepared to think box myrtle, and marsh-
400 OPENING OF THE
mallows rose-geranium ; in short, to believe in the
religion of the place without examining its thirty-
nine articles.
The opening is rich and romantic. This pre-
possessing preface is rather a distinctive feature in
the Pyrenean valleys; the first leaf leads you
graciously into the heart of the volume, and St.
Sauveur, which rises up on the bank of the Gave,
forms the beautiful decoration of the title-page.
My chairmen, whose good nature equalled their
agility, would point out every thing that had a
name attached to it, and made me remark a spot
called Le Pas de TEchelle, where a band of
Miquilites had passed over the hollow of the val-
ley from one mountain to another by the help of a
ladder ; a mere ladder, they added, and with such
an air of straight-forward unimaginative belief,
that if the thing had not been impossible, I should
have taken it for granted on the testimony of their
working-day faces. We asked when this pa# de Ze-
phyr had been performed ? " Avant la revolution,"
was the answer. They did not name the revolution
of '89, or the revolution of '30 ; but calling all
broils by the same general name, left us the choice
of any that had taken place from Pharamond to
VALLEY OF GAVARNIE. 401
Louis Philippe. Not far from the Pas de 1 'Echelle
is the Peyrou Ardoune, or Pierre Ronde, from
whose summit the Brouches, (the worse than Ben-
shees of the valley) curse and prophesy. Many
valleys have their peaks of good or evil reputation:
in that of Heas, the Virgin spoke from the top of
a rock; her image did the same from the moun-
tain of Betharam; and the Yona Gorri (flame-
coloured spirit) of the valley of Aspe, sends
thunder and tempests from the heights of Ani'e.
The mist continued to lower as we passed
through a hollow gorge, with a naked torrent
foaming below; but just as we issued from it, the
sun broke through the clouds and lighted up the
opening, and at the same moment three figures
came round a point of rock into the very spot
where its beams fell. They were Spanish peasants,
in their summer vests of light blue, crimson sashes,
and bright handkerchiefs tied round the heads,
cone- form, but flattened a little at the top. Splen-
did figures all, but one who wore his blanket-cloak
upon his shoulders was really magnificent ; a rob-
ber-chief in look, — not the scowling villain of Itri
or Fondi, in whose degraded visage the fierce spirit
402 THE LADIES 1 ROBBER.
of aggression has sunk into the more sordid one
of speculating cruelty, but the robber whom
young ladies read, perhaps dream, of; who wears
a feather in his beaver, and has an eye under in it
— such an eye ! bold, yet tender ; and then the
heart, « more sinned against lhan sinning,'' and the
grand mind, mistaken by man and driven by his
vulgar inventions to the forest and its lawless,
charming, point-of-honour, intelligence-with-hea-
ven etc. etc. life.
This is the young lady's robber, or was so
before certain stories of ear-splitting and other
tendresses were as generally known as recent
travellers have made them. Our Spaniard would
have played the part grandly, or higher ones ; he
would have looked Don Gutierre,* or Don Lopez
d 'Almeyda,"!- or an y other of the terrible heroes
of Calderone to the life, no quarter for erring
ladies, or suspected ones ; yet, though capable of
wrath, still the finest specimen that has come in
our way of the ultra-magnificents whom one some-
* El Medico de $u Honra, (the Physician of his own
Honour).
f A secreto Agravio, secreta Fenganza, (To secret Out-
rage, secret Vengeance.)
BRIDGE OF SIA.
403
times meets with in the mountains, and who con-
trasted with the grievous- looking faces that hang
out at Cauteretz, make one fancy that there can
be no medium figures among the Spanish peasants.
Those whom we have seen are either conspicuous
for personal beauty and elevation of mien, or short,
squalid, and ill-featured. I have scarcely remarked
what we should call a well-looking man amongst
them : all who are not splendid, are hideous,
though amazingly picturesque.
The bridge of Sia is (I believe) the first autho-
rized point of admiration in the valley; it is a
very sweet pause, and the look from the bridge,
and from a point a little above it, is at once soft
and spirited. Morning brightening gradually from
dirty-water clouds into pinkish streaking ; four
little mills slide down alongside of the narrow fall
that, dividing its stream, tumbles over the rocks
in two frothy stripes, looking at a distance like
two white ribbons; just sun enough now to make
the dew glisten on their brown thatch, and warm
up their watery aspects a little. The mills are
before Sia; at it, the Gave seems to have taken
head, and rushing down through a bold rocky
404 GEDKO AND ITS GROTTO.
chasm overhung with wood,* shoots under a dou-
ble-bridge, — a new arch thrown over an old ivied
one, with considerable effect.
After Sia, the gorge becomes again sterile.
Passed under the shadow of the Pic de Bergoz,
and onwards along the base of schistus moun-
tains, bare, or covered with a thick coating of box,
nut, and other brush-wood. Always the sea-green
torrent below us, sometimes a wooden bridge (a
thing I love, it so becomes goats and goatherds,
capulets and capuchons,) crossing it ; and at the
issue of the defile the pleasant hamlet, meadows,
walnut-trees, and lindens of Pragneres. From
Pragneres the valley widens, the thatched grange
on the glossy lawn becomes more frequent; smooth
meadows glisten on the river's brink, or rise up
from it gracefully, and the waters, dividing into
branches, circle round a wooded islet or a soft
savannah. Glaciers sternly shutting in the dis-
tance, and the Breche de Roland capped with snow
and glittering in the sunbeams.
Our first halt was at the village of Gedro, (or
* All this beautiful wood has been since cut down, — to
show off the water, (/aire valo'ir I'eau,) as our guide said :
when we last saw it, not a branch left.
GEDRO AND ITS GROTTO. 405
Gedres,) pleasantly situated on the soft lap of one
of those openings here called basins, where moun-
tains, that in their near community have formed
the barriers of the gorge, open their wide screens,
and extending them round a broad spread of pas-
ture or of meadow, make room for cottages to
group themselves into hamlets on its teeming sur-
face ; or, in a more melancholy mood, link their
bare arms round some solitary spot, and consign it
to abandonment and silence.
From the public-house in the village of Gedro,
or rather from its garden, a flight of steps leads
down to a grotto (as it is called) of peculiar
beauty. A natural cup in a rocky hollow receives
a fairy fall, — full, pure, and shaded by the meeting
branches which form its infoliated roof. Having
filled to overflowing this delicious fountain, the
stream gushes by with beautiful impetuousness,
and is soon lost sight of between two rocky ledges.
It is a bath close and consecrated as Titania^
bower, and one looks into it almost expecting to see
the white feet of Diana shining through the water.
I think she must have bathed here on some sultry
day, when the hot chase had sent her panting to
its brink with those human feelings of heat and
406 GEDRO AND ITS GROTTO.
lassitude to which goddesses, in common with
mere mortals, appear to have been liable; while
her nymphs, not finding room enough to splash
about, talked scandal on the rocks, or played at
hide-and-seek among the bushes.
How lucky that Louis Quatorze never chanced
to see, or perhaps hear of it ! He would have
planned its transfer to Versailles, as he did that of
the Maison Carree; or (that not being among the
possibilities) have had it travestied at the end of
some cropped alley, straight as a bow-string, with
his royal self in white marble personifying Phoebus
cooling his chariot-wheels in the fountain, while
La Montespan and her attendant nymphs scattered
rose-leaves on its surface. But kingly caprices
apart, what a delicious thing it would be to hang
up in the corner of a park, like a picture of Dome-
nichino's, only so much fresher as nature itself is
fresher than art. If we had it in one of our show
wildernesses, how the annuals would combine to
line and lithograph it into celebrity and out of
the sweet grace of privacy, and the charm that
belongs to a surprise.
I am quite sure that one of the principal reasons
why the Pyrenees, when first visited, never fail to
BENEFIT OF IGNORANCE. 40J
create delight, and to more than justify expecta-
tion, is because their beauties are brought for the
first time before the eye with the auricula meal
still upon their velvet leaves. Passed by, or un-
thought of, by ambulating artists or sketching
amateurs, no gaudy landscape or feeble litho-
graph has made us just enough acquainted with
their forms and their people to deprive them of
the gloss and charm of novelty ; we seem to have
ourselves found out their treasures, and march
into the midst of them exultingly, as if we had a
right to hoist a flag of discovery on every hill and in
every valley. It is all unknown land to the many,
and a thousand times the more lovely for being
so. No one familiar with Canaletti finds any thing
new in the aspect of Venice, and yet nothing else
resembles it : and who is there that does not ex-
perience, on first entering Switzerland, the draw-
back made on the full flush of admiration by the
Staubachs, and the Giesbachs, and the costumes
of Berne, Zurich, or Lucerne, with which they
have become intimate in coloured prints ?
The valley of Heas opens at Gedro : its chapel
and its pilgrimage have given it a Pyrenean cele-
brity. On the day of the Assumption, the joyous
408 PILGRIMS AND
and the idle, as well as the devout, flock from far
and near to the shrine of Our Lady of the Desert,
and there, in a stern and rocky solitude, with wild
mountains, a dark lake, and the desolation of gra-
nite about them, pray in an agony of devotion,
embrace the miraculous image of ,the Virgin, — a
peasant virgin (as we are told) in a russet, gown
and red capulet, — groan out their prayers, chaunt
their litanies, grovel, and beat their breasts in
intense humiliation ; and then, retiring to some
convivial corner, feast, romp, quarrel, are jovial,
tender, riotous, till another fit of devotion sends
them back to the chapel to spread out their con-
trition at the foot of the altar, and resume the
canticle which they had so recently exchanged for
songs of love and revelry. The night is an orgie :
nothing but the testimony of writers interested
by their feelings, and disposed by their justifiable
prejudices to give a favourable colouring to every
thing that affects national manners, could make
such things believed.
But Heas, like Betharam, may have grown dis-
creet; still I am afraid that pilgrimages — I love
the word, it is so full of old, and pious, and beau-
tiful associations — are not so holv in their intents
PILGRIMAGES. 409
and purposes as they would seem to be, — indeed
that their demoralizing influence cannot be doubted ;
still there arrive in the holy week at Rome (I
have often seen them) pilgrims, whose wayworn
countenances testify to the hardships endured in
their long and painful journey from the dear land,
the far-off home, which they have left behind to
go and pray in the sanctuary of the stranger.
These poor people feel, I have no doubt, as if led
on by an inward spirit of revelation — their star of
Bethlehem, which makes their path clear, and
stands over the spot where they have come to
worship.
I recollect a poor woman, who once sat with me
on the grass outside the walls of the monastery of
Valambrosa ; her husband had gone to pray in
the chapel, and mine to visit the monastery whose
churlish inmates interdict the approach of every
thing that wears the female shape. They were
pilgrims, both the man and his wife, — under the
vows (as she told me) ; and were returning from
Rome, where they had been to fulfil one made in
the hour of sickness, and enjoined by the blessed
Virgin herself, who had come three times to the
bedside of the man when he was shrived for death,
VOL. I. T
410 THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.
and promised with her own heavenly voice, the
woman said, to restore him again to health, on the
condition that he should go on foot to the shrine
of St. Peter at Rome, and there perform certain
acts of penitence and prayer indicated by the
celestial visitor.
The poor man made the vow, got better, and
setting out with his wife from their village in
Loraine, went his way, as he believed himself
bidden to do, without chart or compass to the
holy shrine. Strangers to the language, or to the
value of a single coin current in the country
through which they had to pass, often bewilder-
ed amidst cross-roads, sometimes benighted and
obliged to retrace their steps in darkness, jeered
at by one, relieved by another ; walking painfully
and with blistered and excoriated feet, they at
length arrived, after a bitter pilgrimage of many
hundred miles, at the gates of the Holy City,
where they at once found friends. The man was
taken care of in an asylum where male pilgrims
are received, lodged, and, if ill, nursed with ten-
derness ; and the woman found in the convent of
the Holy Trinity, all that the charity of the heart
beautifully exercised could suggest. Great prin-
ffcV
pn
HOW TO JUDGE OTHERS. 411
cesses and noble ladies (as she told me) knelt upon
the ground and washed her feet, all dusty and
blistered as they were from the road ; served her
at supper, made her bed with their own hands, and
waited on her for three whole days. At the end
of which time, being refreshed and strengthened,
the great ladies who (she added) were not nuns,
but noble dames in silks and velvets, kissed her as
if she had been their own sister, and their dear
one ; and, giving her money to help her on her
homeward journey, sent her to rejoin her husband,
who had been treated during his three days of
repose with similar kindness
" Better had they both staid at home, 1 ' says one.
" And minded their household cares, and their
children, if they had any," adds another.
Granted. Yet still there is something exceed-
ingly tender and touching in the devotion of these
poor people ; believing as they did (and in judging
we should always place ourselves in the position of
those whom we take upon us to judge) this act,
which in others might be induced by idle and — as
hindering the power of usefulness — culpable super-
stition, becomes one of humble and sincere thanks-
giving. Theirs was the real pilgrim's progress;
t2
412
HOW TO JUDGE OTHERS.
not going after idleness or leasing, but fulfilling
humbly and by suffering what they believed to be
a divine injunction ; and having done so, returning
homewards full of faith and thankfulness, — not
murmuring at what they had endured, not priding
themselves on what they had performed, but
rejoicing " with exceeding great joy " that they
should have been sent (as they devoutly believed)
to " burn incense in the temple."
The jolly pilgrim of Heas takes another view of
the subject, and instead of keeping off that game-
some mad-cap jubilee with his staff, trots her along
under his arm.
APOLOGY FOR MY DONKEY. 413
CHAPTER XXIII.
APOLOGY FOR MY DONKEY VALLEY OK GAVARNIE, CON-
TINUED THE CHAOS TOO MUCH LIGHT AN EAGLE
WANTING — CIRCUS OF THE MARBORE, AND THE WON-
DERS OF ITS AMPHITHEATRE — OUR WORLD AND THE
WORLD OF NATURE — MAGIC AND MYSTERY NO SPAIN
THE CURATE OF GAVARNIE MORE SPANIARDS FAN-
CIFUL IMAGININGS SKULLS OF THE TEMPLARS — THJE
POOR MAN'S PRAYER — THE HAMLET AT THE CLOSE OF
EVENING — THE IDIOT BOY— A MOUNTAIN BALLAD
THE MINSTREL — THE FAIRY AND THE CAGOTS DARK-
NESS GATHERING RETURN AT NIGHTFALL — CHAIRMEN,
ACCOMPLISHED AND OTHERWISE.
I begin to fear that my Pegasus is rather a long-
eared one, with the bad habit belonging to his fra-
ternity of stopping at every hedge, and browsing
on every stray herb, thorn, thistle, downy dande-
lion, or bitter wormwood,— no matter what, that
happens to fall in its way. If I were to die for it
I cannot get him straight on through the valley of
Gavarnie ; so here we are still at Gedro, just come
up from the beautiful fountain, and looking in
through the kitchen door at a pan-full of trout
414 VALLEY OF GAVARNIE.
frying in a cloud of fragrance, that as we inhale its
savoury steam, makes us as hungry as ravens.
The mess of millet smokes near it on a dish as
large as Herodia's charger, (sign-post dimensions,)
and the set-out being particularly neat, makes us
rather regret that we have not time to stop and
enter into particulars. I always think — a vulgar
thought, perhaps, that a cottage inn — I was going
to say, but I believe it is better not to mince mat-
ters, and frankly write ale-house, is sometimes a
delightful thing; but it must be an English one.
" An honest ale-house, (as the kind old man Izaak
Walton says,) where you will always find a clean
room, lavender in the windows, and twenty ballads
stuck about the walls. " What a sweet homely
English picture ! as old as King James, (first of the
name,) and as fresh as spring daisies. I, who am
certainly no trout-fisher, almost feel myself within
sight of it, watching the line playing on the sur-
face of the clear pebbly stream, and the old tree,
with its knotty roots in the water, making cool
shade and certain shelter for the quiet angler.
My chairmen, evidently lovers of the marvel-
lous, pointed out as we went along La Breche de
Roland, as a gap three hundred feet high in the
KOLAND THE STRONG. 415
mountain curtain of the Marbore is called. It
was made (as they assure us) by one blow of the
Paladin's sword ; who, after this gentle exercise,
refreshed himself with a flying leap of a couple of
leagues (the guide called it) as the crow flies,
landing pleasantly on a rock, which still bears the
impression of his horse's hoofs. I asked our guide
if he believed the legend ; he said that he did
and he did not, which I rather take to be the
aggregate amount of faith in such matters. Ano-
ther, seeing that I made a note, said, " This is the
mark of Monsieur Roland's horse : my great uncle
knew it to be true, and so do many others who are
still alive.'" I smothered my doubts, and spoke of
the Preux a VAriosto, which seemed to please
them ; but the blow and the leap apart, they had
hear J nothing of his story. Angelica might have
been abbess of Fontevrault, or queen of Cyprus,
for any thing they knew about her ; but each
would probably have been ready to swear, if put
to it, that Monsieur Roland was gossip, if not
cousin, to his grandfather. The breach being three
hundred feet high, honest measure, sounds like
something prodigious, but at a distance it is a mere
gap: however, it was no bad blow ; the blade must
416 THE CHAOS.
have been true Damascus, to say nothing of the
arm : — and then the leap ! enough to make Nimrod
Osbaldiston die of envy.
After the pleasant pastures and sweet waters of
Gedro the gorge blackens, and we move on amidst
crumbling rocks, scenting box and noting torrents,
till we find ourselves involved in the stony mazes
of the Chaos, — the desert where the free bird has
entire possession. This Chaos, as it is called,
though the country name is Peyrada, is a ravage
and singular pass, heaped with gigantic fragments
of rock, which encumber the earth and block in
the eye by their prodigious masses ; each recalling
what travellers tell us of the rocking-stone of
Sinai, but perhaps owing a portion of their
fearful gauntness to the verdurous beauty which
precedes it. " Grand Dieu !" exclaimed one of
my porters, a heavy-looking peasant, as we entered
it, " voila ton monde primitif, avant que tu ne
Paies arrange a ton gre." He had been a hunter
of bears in his youth, but was now content to
bring down the eagle, and grow familiar in the
solitudes of the desert with those objects to which
the untaught mind offers its instinctive worship.
No tradition, I believe, exists of the remote con-
TOO MUCH LIGHT. 417
vulsion of nature to which this gorge owes its
extraordinary appearance ; one might imagine it a
battle-field, where the antagonists were giants, and
the missiles rocks torn up from their moorings in
the earth, and hurled with superhuman force or
fury, as the prodigious arm willed it. There is too
much sunshine upon it now, more than enough to
light it up into a jumble ; twilight would throw it
into masses, it would be more shadowy, more
awfully fantastic ; or the breaking morning, with
its mysterious and slowly developed light, its wan
light that is just not darkness, making phantoms
of its forms, would endue them with that vague
character, whose unmeasured power rarely endures
the test of absolute exposure.
But in or out of sunshine, the effect of this
extraordinary pass is most striking, and would be
still more so, did it lead at once to the great fall
and its sublime amphitheatre. But a gentle vale
intervenes,* creating a summer feeling, which
* This is the valley of Gavarnie proper; but to avoid
confusion, I have given the name generally to the whole
vale, from Luz to the Cirque de Marbore\ In the map of
the country it has many divisions and various names, all of
which I have fused into the general name of Gavarnie.
t3
418 AN EAGLE WANTING.
somewhat dilutes the impression left on the mind
by its chaotic rocks ; an impression that would
link itself well with the gloom and mystery of the
Marbore. A poor dingy little bird with a feeble
whistle was the only sign of life in the Chaos, and
that weak evidence hid itself amongst the rents in
the rocks, as if it belonged more to the earth than
the air. An eagle would have been fine and
appropriate ; or the stormy petrel, whose name is
a picture, with the angry heavens, and the roaring
waves, and the desolate rocks that make the mari-
ner's heart quail, in it. But his solitude is on the
ocean, and the eagle had deserted his home; so
neither came, though invoked.
At length, after a pilgrimage of nearly six
hours, and a halt of a few minutes at the little inn
of Gavarnie, we approach the arena through an
oval basin framed in by grey rocks partially
greened, with an underwood of beech and some
scattered pines, and divided from the actual hol-
low of the amphitheatre by the long folds that
stretch out from the side mountains, and crossing
over each other, conceal the base of the Marbore.
Aswedescend into this first circus, the amphitheatre
CASCADE OF THE MARBORE. 419
presents itself splendidly ; the upper towers of the
Marbore lighted up with a cold silver light upon
the snow that is quite magical, while the lower
ramparts repose in deep and stationary shadow.
And here the eye brings itself to a central point,
from which the arms of the half-circle diverge,
taking the form of a blunted crescent, breaking
down abruptly at each extremity. This view
(advancing towards the circus) is magnificent in
form, character, and colouring ; within the great
hollow is the fall of Gavarnie, the throned idol.
I have worshipped nobler ones, — but the shrine !
what glory in the wilderness !
The cascade itself recalls the Staubach, another
fine fall (in a minor way) that I never could
greatly admire, though Lord Byron has associated
its image with the sublime one of Death on the pale
horse. It descends from an elevation of 1250 feet,
and is supposed to be the highest in Europe, but
of this the eye can form no estimate ; it uses the
surrounding objects as its standard, and decides
by their comparative magnitude. The Staubach,
whose tail is only 800 feet long, makes nearly as
flourishing a figure as this comet of the desert,
420 CIRCUS OF THE MAKBORE.
which, though a splendid downward rush of water,
broken twice in its fall by the projecting rocks,
has no wild ungovernable bursts, no magnificent
overbearings; it drops down from the middle of the
rocks, instead of coming, like thellandeck, straight
from the heavens; the rocks rise up behind and
mark its issue, which would be more striking if
less obvious.
Besides these defects, it has others ; it is visible
too long before it is actually reached, and instead
of being a front, is a side-scene decoration. If it
were in the centre of the solemn and majestic
amphitheatre, it would have more breadth and
boldness, it would take the lead instead of being
an accessory ; but placed as it is, I must say that
it appears to me not altogether worthy of the
amazing magnificence with which nature in her
plenitude of means has surrounded it.
The circus of the Marbore* within which it
hangs — not reigns, is indeed grand ; its magnificent
arena seems formed to receive the boiling- flood of
an American cataract. A mighty amphitheatre of
giant rocks rises up in graduated ramparts; other
rocks spread out from these, stretching their
WON'DERS OF ITS AMPHITHEATRE. 421
branching arms round a dark basin, once a lake;
but the continued workings of the water having in
the course of ages worn itself a passage through
these natural barriers, it is now dry. Others again,
assuming the forms of architecture, lift up their
castellated walls, which from their resemblance to
the works of man are called the towers of Mar-
bore, bearing on their mighty shoulders the weight
of long-accumulated snows and eternal glaciers.
At this moment I can recollect nothing that, as a
single image, can be compared with this, nothing
that approaches its character of grand and grizzly
loneliness: it is a Bible desert, and desolate — but
not a desolation ; for there are no traces of the over-
throw of man's works, no marks of the passage of
life and its extinction, no sign that any son of man
had passed hereby. The remarkable form of the
arena, its depth, and (at this moment) darkness ; its
loftiness and magnitude depending upon nothing,
owing nothing to previous associations, being as it
were alone with heaven, — grand, silent, companion-
less, — presents an image of amazing power to the
mind. With a little help of fancy, one might be-
lieve it a spot hollowed out of the wilderness for
422 OUR WORLD, AXD
awful purposes, where rebel angels might hold
conclave, or the Phoenician queen of heaven, the
horned Astarte, receive the vows of the Sidonian
virgins, or hear the songs of Zion on ' th' offensive
mountain. 1 Yet the blue iris and other summer
flowers blow within its dreary circuit, as love
sometimes buds amidst the ruins of the heart.
II Jiore del pellegi'ino* — the beautiful silver
thistle of the Lucca hills, is here too, opening its
pure star in the desert ; nor has the close neigh-
bourhood of the glaciers hindered the green moss
and darker pine from mixing with the black and
ochrous banding of the detached side-screen, from
behind which suddenly, and at this moment, comes
the sun, throwing its light on the opposite face of
the amphitheatre, whose broad rocks glisten with
the moisture of innumerable threads of water that
trickle over it, making its smooth front seen)
like marble, polished almost to glassiness. High
rocky points to the left, fine-drawn and glittering,
and three parts of the hollow still in deep shadow.
* A large thistle of the sun-flower form, and very beau-
tiful, worn by the pilgrims who visit annually a certain
shrine in the Lueca mountains; its blossom resembles
mother of pearl, both in hue and lustre.
THE WORLD OF NATURE. 423
How the world — I mean the little world of our
own contrivance — would seem poor and trivial
near to this prodigious world of nature. Fill the
deep, and vast, and dark arena with equipages;
crowd it with orders of the Garter — or the Bath,
the Golden Fleece, or the Golden Eagle; sprinkle it
with diamonds ; make a way amidst its snows for
kings and their regalia ; fill the air with courtly
music, load it with costly perfume, — how less than
littleness it would all seem! Such scenes are worth
volumes of instruction; they open to us an upward
path, and elevate the faculty of admiration, with
which all sentient beings are more or less endued,
to the level of legitimate worship.
Blessed and beautiful nature ! how fair you are
to those who know and honour you, and to whom
the fibres of the wild leaf, and the chirping of the
little bird, and the gloss of the small berry, seem
full of loveliness ; but here in this solitude, where
the voice of the falling waters utters parables, and
the echoes of the desert prophesy, â 
