THE BIOGRAPHICAL EDITION
OF THE WORKS OF
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
THi *BI&GRAPHICAL EDITION
OF STEVENSON'S WORKS
NOVELS AND ROMANCES
TREASURE ISLAND
PRINCE OTTO
KIDNAPPED
THE BLACK ARROW
THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAH
THE WRONG BOX
THE WRECKER
DAVID BALFOUR
THE EBB-TIDE
WEIR OF HERMISTON
ST. IVES
SHORTER STORfES
NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS
THE DYNAMITER
THE MERRY MEN, eontaittfttf DR. JEKYLL
AND MR. HYDE
ISLAND NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS
SSA YS, TJKA VELS & SKETCHES
AN INLAND VOYAGE
TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
VIRGINIBUS PUERISQUE
FAMILIAR STUDIES
THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT, contatoittf THE
SILVERADO SQUATTERS
MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS
IN THE SOUTH SEAS
ACROSS THE PLAINS
ESSAYS OF TRAVEL AND IN THE ART OP
WRITING
LAY MORALS AND OTHER PAPERS
POEMS
POEMS AND BALLADS
THE LETTERS OF ROBERT LOUIS
STEVENSON. 4wl.
THE LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
By Gnhun Baifour. *Abrid?ed Edition La 000 volume
Thirty-one wlitmes. Sold singly or in ttlt
CLOTH, ismo LBCP LEATHER, x6zno <
CHABXES SCRIBNZR'S SONS, NEW YOEK
BIOGRAPftlGAIf EDITION
TRAVELS WITH
A DONKEY
IN THE CEVENNES
BY
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
WITH A PREFACE BY MRS. STEPENSON
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIENER'S SONS
T, 1905, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Piloted in the United States of America
All rights reserved. No part of this book
may be reproduced in any form without
the permission of Charles Scribner's Sons
PREFACE
TO
THE BIOGRAPHICAL EDITION
THE two inland voyagers, Louis Stevenson
and Sir Walter Simpson, returned from
their cruise so greatly refreshed in mind
and body that it was determined to repeat the ex-
perience as soon as possible. But, as time passed,
Sir Walter's enthusiasm waned, and, besides, he
looked askance at the idea of taking the road on
foot, as his comrade proposed. His gait was very
deliberate, with short, even, careful steps, so that
he was soon left far in the rear by his more im-
petuous companion, wjio forged ahead in a manner
that carried him to his destination long before the
arrival of Sir Walter. Walking together, there-
fore, being practically out of the question, when
Copyright, 1905, by Charles Scribner'a Sons
vi PREFACE
the second expedition started, on the 23rd of Sep-
tember, 1878, Modestine and her master comprised
the only members of the party.
The twelve days' tramp through the Cevennes,
though in some ways more exhausting than the
'canoe voyage, was more to the traveller's taste,
having elements of romance the former lacked. To
the end of his life the author of Treasure Island
and the Child's Garden remained at heart a boy.
What could appeal more strongly to the imagi-
nation of a " lantern bearer " than the thought of
sleeping alone under the stars in a fleecy blue bag,
and breaking his fast on bits of chocolate? to
say nothing of the pistol, which I doubt would have
proved a very efficient weapon in time of need,
had such a chance occurred, it being of an anti-
quated pattern, uncertain in its mechanism, and
more likely to be a menace than a protection to
its owner.
The management of Modestine's pack must
have been a source of exasperation and perplexity
to her master, for my husband was, like his father
before him, what the Scotch call a "handless
PREFACE vii
man." Neither of them could tie a knot that
would hold, and the inventor of the revolving
lights and countless scientific instruments would
find himself helpless before the problem of cord-
ing a trunk, or even buttoning his own cuffs. I
remember once, in an out-of-the-way place, my
husband offering to carry wood from a distant
pile as his share of the camp work, my sister and
I to do the cooking. Our supply of fuel seeming
very scant, we looked into the matter to find him
plodding wearily back and forth, fetching a single
stick at a time. He certainly never attained " that
neat, hurried, bite-your-thread effect" that he so
admired in Americans.
Kegan Paul not only paid twenty pounds for
the Travels with a Donkey, but invited the author
to dinner, where the shy young man suffered
agonies of embarrassment over the claret that was
served to the guests alone, Mr. Paul being an
abstainer from principle. Would the acceptance,
at his invitation, of the wine Mr. Paul thought it
wrong to take, put Mr. Paul in a false position?
And yet, 00 what grounds to refuse? This deli-
viii PREFACE
cate question became so harassing to the Scotch!
conscience, that, as my husband has told me, he
would have infinitely preferred to dine not at all,
R V. DE G. S.
My DEAR SIDNEY COLVIN,
The journey which this little book is to describe was very
agreeable and fortunate for me. After an uncouth beginning,
I had the best of luck to the end. But we are all travellers in
what John Bunyan calls the wilderness of this world, all, too,
travellers with a donkey; and the best that we find in our
travels is an honest friend. He is a fortunate voyager who
finds many. We travel, indeed, to find them. They are the
end and the reward of life. They keep us worthy of ourselves ;
and, when we are alone, we are only nearer to the absent.
Every book is, in an intimate sense, a circular letter to the
friends of him who writes it. They alone take his meaning;
they find private messages, assurances of love, and expressions
of gratitude dropped for them in every comer. The public is
but a generous patron who defrays the postage. Yet, though
the letter is directed to all, we have an old and kindly custom
of addressing it on the outside to one. Of what shall a man be
proud, if he is not proud of his friends ? And so, my dear
Sidney Colvin, it is with pride that I sign myself affectionately
yours,
R.L.S.
CONTENTS
VELAY PACK
THE DONKEY, THK PACK, AND THE PACK-SADDLE 3
THE GREEN DONKEY-DRIVER. 13
I HAVE A GOAD 28
UPPER G&VAUDAN
A CAMP IN Tin: DARK 41
CHEYLARD AND Luc 59
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS
FATHER AFOLLINARIS 69
THE MONKS . . 78
THE BOARDERS 91
UPPER GISVAUDAN (Continued)
ACROSS THE GOULET . *O5
A NIGHT AMONG THE PINES ....... TIE
THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS
ACROSS THE LOZ&RE 123
PONT DE MONTVERT 132
IN THE VALLEY OF THE TARN 143
FLORAC .....?... 160
IN THE VALLEY OF THE MIMENTE 165
THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY 173
THE LAST DAY .*.* 186
FAREWELL, MODESTINE 196
VELAY
fc * Many are the mighty things, ana
nought is more mighty than
matt. ...//> wasters by his
devices the tenant of the fields,"
ANTIGONE.
M Who hath loosed the bands of the
wild* ass ?" JOB,
VELAY
THE DONKEY, THE PACK, AND THE
PACK-SADDLE
IN a little place called Le Monastier, in a pleas-
ant highland valley fifteen miles from Le
Puy, I spent about a month of fine days.
Monastier is notable for the making* of lace, for
drunkenness, for freedom of language, and for
unparalleled political dissension. There are ad-
herents of each of the four French parties Legit-
imists, Orleanists, Imperialists, and Republicans
in this little mountain-town ; and they all hate,
loathe, decry, and calumniate each other. Except
for business purposes, or to give each other the
lie in a tavern brawl, they have laid aside even
the civility of speech, 'Tis a mere mountain
Poland. In the midst of this Babylon I found
myself a rallying-point; every one was anxious
*o be kind and helpful to the stranger. This was
4 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
not merely from the natural hospitality of moun-
tain people, nor even from the surprise with which
I was regarded as a man living of his own free will
in Monastier, when he might just as well have
lived anywhere else in this big world; it arose a
good deal from my projected excursion southward
through the Cevennes. A traveller of my sort
was a thing hitherto unheard of in that district.
I was looked upon with contempt, like a man who
should project a journey to the moon, but yet with
a respectful interest, like one setting forth for the
inclement Pole. All were ready to help in my
preparations; a crowd of sympathisers supported
me at the critical moment of a bargain; not a step
was taken but was heralded by glasses round and
celebrated by a dinner or a breakfast
It was already hard upon October before I was
ready to set forth, and at the high altitudes over
which my road lay there was no Indian summer to
be looked for. I was determined, if not to camp
out, at least to have the means of camping out in
my possession; for there is nothing more harass-
ing to an easy mind than the necessity of reaching
VELAY 5
shelter by dusk, and the hospitality of a village inn
is not always to be reckoned sure by those who
trudge on foot. A tent, above all for a solitary
traveller, is troublesome to pitch, and troublesome
to strike again; and even on the march it forms
a conspicuous feature in your baggage. A sleep-
ing-sack, on the other hand, is always ready you
have only to get into it; it serves a double purpose
a bed by night, a portmanteau by day ; and it
does not advertise your intention of camping out
to every curious passer-by. This is a huge point
If the camp is not secret, it is but a troubled
resting-place ; you become a public character ; the
convivial rustic visits your bedside after an early
supper; and you must sleep with one eye open,
and be up before the day. I decided on a sleeping-
sack; and after repeated visits to Le Puy, and a
deal of high living for myself and my advisers, a
sleeping-sack was designed, constructed, and tri-
umphally brought home.
This child of my invention was nearly six feet
square, exclusive of two triangular flaps to serve
as a pillow by night and as the top and bottom of
6 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
the sack by day. I call it " the sack," but it was
never a sack by more than courtesy : only a sort of
long roll or sausage, green waterproof cart cloth
without and blue sheep's fur within. It was com-
modious as a valise, warm and dry for a bed.
There was luxurious turning-room for one; and
at a pinch the thing might serve for two, I could
bury myself in it up to the neck; for my head I
trusted to a fur cap, with a hood to fold down over
my ears and a band to pass under my nose like
a respirator; and in case of heavy rain I proposed
to make myself a little tent, or tentlet, with my
waterproof coat, three stones, and a bent branch.
It will readily be conceived that I could not carry
this huge package on my own, merely human,
shoulders. It remained to choose a beast of bur-
then. Now, a horse is a fine lady among animals,
flighty, timid, delicate in eating, of tender health ;
he is too valuable and too restive to be left alone,
so that you are chained to your brute as to a
fellow galley-slave; a dangerous road puts him
out of his wits; in short, he's an uncertain and
exacting ally, and adds thirty-fold to the troubles
VELAY 7
of the voyager. What I required was something
cheap and small and hardy, and of a stolid and
peaceful temper; and all these requisites pointed
to a donkey.
There dwelt an old man in Monastier, of rather
unsound intellect according to some, much fol-
lowed by street-boys, and known to fame as Father
Adam. Father Adam had a cart, and to draw the
cart a diminutive she-ass, not much bigger than a
dog, the colour of a mouse, with a kindly eye and
a determined under-jaw. There was something
neat and high-bred, a quakerish elegance, about the
rogue that hit my fancy on the spot. Our first
interview was in Monastier market-place. To
prove her good temper, one child after another
was set upon her back to ride, and one after an-
other went head over heels into the air; until a
want of confidence began to reign in youthful
bosoms, and the experiment was discontinued from
a dearth of subjects. I was already backed by a
deputation of my friends; but as if this were not
enough, all the buyers and sellers came round and
helped me in the bargain; and the ass and I and
8 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
Father Adam were the centre of a hubbub for near
half an hour. At length she passed into my ser-
vice for the consideration of sixty-five francs and
a glass of brandy. The sack had already cost
eighty francs and two glasses of beer; so that
Modestine, as I instantly baptised her, was upon
all accounts the cheaper article. Indeed, that was
as it should be; for she was only an appurtenance
of my mattress, or self-acting bedstead on , four
castors.
I had a last interview with Father Adam in a
billiard-room at the witching hour of dawn, when
I administered the brandy. He professed himself
greatly touched by the separation, and declared
he had often bought white bread for the donkey
when he had been content with black bread for
himself ; but this, according to the best authorities,
must have been a flight of fancy. He had a
name in the village for brutally misusing the ass;
yet it is certain that he shed a tear, and the tear
made a clean mark down one cheek.
By the advice of a fallacious local saddler, a
leather pad was made for me with rings to fasten
VELAY 9
on my bundle; and I thoughtfully completed my
kit and arranged my toilette. By way of armoury
and utensils, I took a revolver, a little spirit-lamp
and pan, a lantern and some halfpenny candles, a
jack-knife and a large leather flask. The main
cargo consisted of two entire changes of warm
clothing besides my travelling wear of country
velveteen, pilot-coat, and knitted spencer some
books, and my railway-rug, which, being also in
the form of a bag, made me a double castle for cold
nights. The permanent larder was represented by
cakes of chocolate and tins of Bologna sausage.
All this, except what I carried about my person,
was easily stowed into the sheepskin bag; and
by good fortune I threw in my empty knapsack,
rather for convenience of carriage than from any
thought that I should want it on my journey. For
more immediate needs, I took a leg of cold mutton,
a bottle of Beaujolais, an empty bottle to carry
milk, an egg-beater, and a considerable quantity
of black bread and white, like Father Adam, for
myself and donkey, only in my scheme of things
the destinations were reversed.
io TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
Monastrians, of all shades of thought in politics,
had agreed in threatening me with many ludicrous
misadventures, and with sudden death in many
surprising forms. Cold, wolves, robbers, above all
the nocturnal practical joker, were daily and elo-
quently forced on my attention. Yet in these vati-
cinations, the true, patent danger was left out.
Like Christian, it was from my pack I suffered
by the way. Before telling my own mishaps, let
me, in two words, relate the lesson of my expe-
rience. If the pack is well strapped at the ends,
and hung at full length not doubled, for your
life across the pack-saddle, the traveller is safe*
The saddle will certainly not fit, such is the im-
perfection of our transitory life; it will assuredly
topple and tend to overset; but there are stones
on every roadside, and a man soon learns the art
of correcting any tendency to overbalance with a
well-adjusted stone.
On the day of my departure I was up a little
after five; by six, we began to load the donkey;
and ten minutes after, my hopes were in the dust.
The pad would not stay on Modestine's back for
VELAY ii
half a moment. I returned it to its maker, with
whom I had so contumelious a passage that the
street outside was crowded from wall to wall with
gossips looking on and listening. The pad changed
hands with much vivacity; perhaps it would be
more descriptive to say that we threw it at each
other's heads; and, at any rate, we were very
warm and unfriendly, and spoke with a deal of
freedom.
I had a common donkey pack-saddle a barde,
as they call it fitted upon Modestine ; and once
more loaded her with my effects. The double
sack, my pilot-coat (for it was warm, and I was
to walk in my waistcoat), a great bar of black
bread, and an open basket containing the white
bread, the mutton, and the bottles, were all corded
together in a very elaborate system of knots, and
I looked on the result with fatuous content. In
such a monstrous deck-cargo, all poised above the
donkey's shoulders, with nothing below to balance,
on a brand-new pack-saddle that had not yet been
worn to fit the animal, and fastened with brand-
new girths that might be expected to stretch and
is TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
slacken by the way, even a very careless traveller
should have seen disaster brewing. That elabo-
rate system of knots, again, was the work of too
many sympathisers to be very artfully designed.
It is true they tightened the cords with a will ; as
many as three at a time would have a foot against
Modestine's quarters, and be hauling with clenched
teeth; but I learned afterwards that one thought-
ful person, without any exercise of force, can make
a more solid job than half-a-dozen heated and
enthusiastic grooms. I was then but a novice;
even after the misadventure of the pad nothing
could disturb my security, and I went forth from
the stable-door as an ox goeth to the slaughter*
THE GREEN DONKEY-DRIVER
THE bell of Monastier was just striking
nine as I got quit of these preliminary
troubles and descended the hill through
the common. As long as I was within sight of
the windows, a secret shame and the fear of some
laughable defeat withheld me from tampering with
Modestine. She tripped along upon her four small
hoofs with a sober daintiness of gait; from time
to time she shook her ears or her tail; and she
looked so small under the bundle that my mind
misgave me. We got across the ford without diffi-
culty there was no doubt about the matter, she
was docility itself and once on the other bank,
* where the road begins to mount through pine-
woods, I took in my right hand the unhallowed
staff, and with a quaking spirit applied it to the
donkey. Modestine brisked up her pace for per-
haps three steps, and then relapsed into her former
I 4 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
minuet. Another application had the same effect,
and so with the third. I am worthy the name
of an Englishman, and it goes against my con-
science to lay my hand rudely on a female. I
desisted, and looked her all over from head to
foot; the poor brute's knees were trembling and
her breathing was distressed; it was plain that
she could go no faster on a hill. God forbid,
thought I, that I should brutalise this innocent
creature; let her go at her own pace, and let me
patiently follow.
What that pace was, there is no word mean
enough to describe; it was something as much
slower than a walk as a walk is slower than a
run; it kept me hanging on each foot for an
incredible length of time; in five minutes it ex-
hausted the spirit and set up a fever in all the
muscles of the leg* And yet I had to keep close
at hand and measure my advance exactly upon
hers; for if I dropped a few yards into the rear,
or went on a few yards ahead, Modestine came in-
stantly to a halt and began to browse. The thought
that this was to last from here to Alais nearly
VELAY 15
broke my heart. Of all conceivable journeys, this
promised to be the most tedious. I tried to tell
myself it was a lovely day; I tried to charm my
foreboding spirit with tobacco ; but I had a vision
ever present to me of the long, long roads, up
hill and down dale, and a pair of figures ever
infinitesimally moving, foot by foot, a yard to
the minute, and, like things enchanted in a night-
mare, approaching no nearer to the goal.
In the meantime there came up behind us a tall
peasant, perhaps forty years of age, of an ironical
snuffy countenance, and arrayed in the green tail-
coat of the countiy. He overtook us hand over
hand, and stopped to consider our pitiful advance.
" Your donkey," says he, " is very old? "
I told him, I believed not.
Then, he supposed, we had come far.
I told him, we had but newly left Monastien
" Et vous marches comme qal" cried he; and>
throwing back his head, he laughed long and
heartily. I watched him, half prepared to feel
offended, until he had satisfied his mirth; and
then, " You must have no pity on these animals/'
1 6 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
said he; and, plucking a switch out of a thicket,
he began to lace Modestine about the stern-works,
uttering a cry. The rogue pricked up her ears
and broke into a good round pace, which she kept
up without flagging, and without exhibiting the
least symptom of distress, as long as the peasant
kept beside us. Her former panting and shaking
had been, I regret to say, a piece of comedy.
My deus ex machina, before he left me, supplied
some excellent, if inhumane, advice; presented me
with the switch, which he declared she would feel
more tenderly than my cane; and finally taught
me the true cry or masonic word of donkey-drivers,
" Proot ! " All the time, he regarded me with a
comical incredulous air, which was embarrassing
to confront; and smiled over my donkey-driving,
as I might have smiled over his orthography, or
his green tail-coat But it was not my turn for
the moment.
I was proud of my new lore, and thought I
had learned the art to perfection. And certainly
Modestine did wonders for the rest of the fore-
noon, and I had a breathing space to look about
VELAY 17
me. It was Sabbath; the mountain-fields were
all vacant in the sunshine; and as we came down
through St. Martin de Frugeres, the church was
crowded to the door, there were people kneeling
without upon the steps, and the sound of the
priest's chanting came forth out of the dim in-
terior. It gave me a home feeling on the spot;
for I am a countryman of the Sabbath, so to
speak, and all Sabbath observances, like a Scotch
accent, strike in me mixed feelings, grateful and
the reverse. It is only a traveller, hurrying by
like a person from another planet, who can rightly
enjoy the peace and beauty of the great ascetic
feast. The sight of the resting country does his
spirit good. There is something better than music
in the wide unusual silence; and it disposes him
to amiable thoughts, like the sound of a little river
or the warmth of sunlight.
In this pleasant humour I came down the hill
to where Goudet stands in the green end of a
valley, with Chateau Beaufort opposite upon a
rocky steep, and the stream, as dear as crystal,
lying in a deep pool between them. Above and
i8 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
below, you may hear it wimpling over the stones,
an amiable stripling of a river, which it seems
absurd to call the Loire. On all sides, Goudet is
shut in by mountains ; rocky foot-paths, practicable
at best for donkeys, join it to the outer world of
France; and the men and women drink and swear,
in their green corner, or look up at the snow-clad
peaks in winter from the threshold of their homes,
in an isolation, you would think, like that of
Homer's Cyclops. But it is not so; the postman
reaches Goudet with the letter-bag; the aspiring
youth of Goudet are within a day's walk of the
railway at Le Puy; and here in the inn you may
find an engraved portrait of the host's nephew,
Regis Senac, " Professor of Fencing and Cham-
pion of the two Americas/* a distinction gained
by him, along with the sum of five hundred dol-
lars, at Tammany Hall, New York, on the loth
April, 1876.
I hurried over my midday meal, and was early
forth again. But, alas, as we climbed the inter-
minable hill upon the other side, " Proot ! " seemed
to have lost its virtue. I prooted like a lion,
VELAY 19
I prooted mellifluously like a sucking-dove; but
Modestine would be neither softened nor intimi-
dated. She held doggedly to her pace; nothing
but a blow would move her, and that only for a
second. I must follow at her heels, incessantly
belabouring. A moment's pause in this ignoble
toil, and she relapsed into her own private gait.
I think I never heard of any one in as mean a
situation. I must reach the lake of Bouchet, where
I meant to camp, before sundown, and, to have
even a hope of this, I must instantly maltreat this
uncomplaining animal. The sound of my own
blows sickened me. Once, when I looked at her,
she had a faint resemblance to a lady of my ac-
quaintance who formerly loaded me with kindness ;
and this increased my horror of my cruelty.
To make matters worse, we encountered another
donkey, ranging at will upon the roadside; and
this other donkey chanced to be a gentleman. He
and Modestine met nickering for joy, and I had
to separate the pair and beat down their young
romance with a renewed and feverish bastinado.
If the other donkey had had the heart of a male
20 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
under his hide, he would have fallen upon me
tooth and hoof; and this was a kind of conso-
lation he was plainly unworthy of Modcstine's
affection. But the incident saddened me, as did
everything that spoke of my donkey's sex.
It was blazing hot up the valley, windless, with
vehement sun upon my shoulders; and I had to
labour so consistently with my stick that the sweat
ran into my eyes. Every five minutes, too, the
pack, the basket, and the pilot-coat would take
an ugly slew to one side or the other; and I had
to stop Modestine, just when I had got her to a
tolerable pace of about two miles an hour, to tug,
push, shoulder, and readjust the load. And at
last, in the village of Ussel, saddle and all, the
whole hypothec turned round and grovelled in the
dust below the donkey's belly. She, none better
pleased, incontinently drew up and seemed to
smile; and a party of one man, two women, and
two children came up, and, standing round me
in a half-circle, encouraged her by their example.
I had the devil's own trouble to get the thing
righted; and the instant I had done so, without
VELAY 21
hesitation, it toppled and fell down upon the other
side. Judge if I was hot! And yet not a hand
was offered to assist me. The man, indeed, told
me I ought to have a package of a different shape.
I suggested, if he knew nothing better to the point
in my predicament, he might hold his tongue.
And the good-natured dog agreed with me smil-
ingly. It was the most despicable fix. I must
plainly content myself with the pack for Modes-
tine, and take the following items for my own
share of the portage : a cane, a quart flask, a pilot-
jacket heavily weighted in the pockets, two pounds
of black bread, and an open basket full of meats
and bottles. I believe I may say I am not devoid
of greatness of soul ; for I did not recoil from this
infamous burthen. I disposed it, Heaven knows
how, so as to be mildly portable, and then pro-
ceeded to steer Modestine through the village. She
tried, as was indeed her invariable habit, to enter
every house and every courtyard in the whole
length ; and, encumbered as I was, without a hand
to help myself, <no words can render an idea of
my difficulties. A priest, with six or seven others,
22 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
was examining a church in process of repair, and
he and his acolytes laughed loudly as they saw my
plight. I remembered having laughed myself when
I had seen good men struggling with adversity in
the person of a jackass, and the recollection filled
me with penitence. That was in my old light days,
before this trouble came upon me. God knows at
least that I shall never laugh again, thought I.
But O, what a cruel thing is a farce to those
engaged in it!
A little out of the village, Modestine, filled with
the demon, set her heart upon a by-road, and posi-
tively refused to leave it. I dropped all my bun-
dles, and, I am ashamed to say, struck the poor
sinner twice across the face. It was pitiful to see
her lift up her head with shut eyes, as if waiting
for another blow. I came very near crying; but
I did a wiser thing than that, and sat squarely
down by the roadside to consider my situation
under the cheerful influence of tobacco and a nip
of brandy. Modestine, in the meanwhile, munched
some black bread with a contrite hypocritical air.
It was plain that I must make a sacrifice to the
VELAY 23
gods of shipwreck. I threw away the empty bottle
destined to carry milk; I threw away my own
white bread, and, disdaining to act by general
average, kept the black bread for Modestine;
lastly, I threw away the cold leg of mutton and
the egg-whisk, although this last was dear to my
heart. Thus I found room for everything in the
basket, and even stowed the boating-coat on the
top. By means of an end of cord I slung it under
one arm; and although the cord cut my shoulder,
and the jacket hung almost to the ground, it was
with a heart greatly lightened that I set forth again.
I had now an arm free to thrash Modestine,
and cruelly I chastised her. If I were to reach
the lakeside before dark, she must bestir her little
shanks to some tune. Already the sun had gone
down into a windy-looking mist; and although
there were still a few streaks of gold far off to
the east on the hills and the black fir-woods, all
was cold and grey about our onward path. An
infinity of little country by-roads led hither and
thither among the fields. It was the most point-
less labyrinth. I could see my destination over-
24 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
head, or rather the peak that dominates it; but
choose as I pleased, the roads always ended by
turning away from it, and sneaking back towards
the valley, or northward along the margin of the
hills. The failing light, the waning colour, the
naked, unhomely, stony country through which I
was travelling, threw me into some despondency,
I promise you, the stick was not idle; I think
every decent step that Modestine took must have
cost me at least two emphatic blows. There was
not another sound in the neighbourhood but that
of my unwearying bastinado.
. Suddenly, in the midst of my toils, the load
once more bit the dust, and, as by enchantment,
all the cords were simultaneously loosened, and
the road scattered with my dear possessions. The
packing was to begin again from the beginning;
and as I had to invent a new and better system,
I do not doubt but I lost half an hour. It began
to be dusk in earnest as I reached a wilderness
of turf and stones. It had the air of being a road
which should lead everywhere at the same time;
and I was falling into something not unlike de-
VELAY 25
spair when I saw two figures stalking towards me
over the stones. They walked one behind the other
like tramps, but their pace was remarkable. The
son led the way, a tall, ill-made, sombre, Scotch-
looking man ; the mother followed, all in her Sun-
day's best, with an elegantly-embroidered ribbon
to her cap, and a new felt hat atop, and proffer-
ing, as she strode along with kilted petticoats, a
string of obscene and blasphemous oaths.
I hailed the son and asked him my direction.
He pointed loosely west and north-west, muttered
an inaudible comment, and, without slacking his
pace for an instant, stalked on, as he was going,
right athwart my path. The mother followed
without so much as raising her head. I shouted
and shouted after them, but they continued to
scale the hillside, and turned a deaf ear to my
outcries. At last, leaving Modestine by herself,
I was constrained to run after them, hailing the
while. They stopped as I drew near, the mother
still cursing; and I could see she was a hand-
some, motherly, respectable-looking woman. The
son once more answered me roughly and inaudibly,
26 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
and was for setting out again. But this time I
simply collared the mother, who was nearest me,
and, apologising for my violence, declared that
I could not let them go until they had put me on
my road. They were neither of them offended
rather mollified than otherwise; told me I had
only to follow them; and then the mother asked
me what I wanted by the lake at such an hour.
I replied, in the Scotch manner, by inquiring if
she had far to go herself. She told me, with an-
other oath, that she had an hour and a half's road
before her. And then, without salutation, the pair
strode forward again up the hillside in the gath-
ering dusk.
I returned for Modestine, pushed her briskly
forward, and, after a sharp ascent of twenty
minutes, reached the edge of a plateau. The
view, looking back on my day's journey, was
both wild and sad. Mount Mfeenc and the peaks
beyond St. Julien stood out in trenchant gloom
against a cold glitter in the east; and the inter-
vening field of hills had fallen together into one
broad wash of shadow, except here and there the
VELAY 27
outline of a wooded sugar-loaf in black, here and
there a white irregular patch to represent a culti-
vated farm, and here and there a blot where the
Loire, the Gazeille, or the Lausonne wandered in
a gorge.
Soon we were on a highroad, and surprise
seized on my mind as I beheld a village of some
magnitude close at hand ; for I had been told that
the neighbourhood of the lake was uninhabited ex-
cept by trout. The road smoked in the twilight
with children driving home cattle from the fields;
and a pair of mounted stride-legged women, hat and
cap and all, dashed past me at a hammering trot
from the canton where they had been to church
and market. I asked one of the children where
I was. At Bouchet St. Nicolas, he told me.
Thither, about a mile south of my destination, and
on the other side of a respectable summit, had
these confused roads and treacherous peasantry
conducted me. My shoulder was cut, so that it
hurt sharply; my arm ached like toothache from
perpetual beating; I gave up the lake and my
design to camp, and asked for the auberge.
I HAVE A GOAD
THE (wberge of Bouchet St. Nicolas was
among the least pretentious I have ever
visited; but I saw many more of the
like upon my journey. Indeed, it was typical of
these French highlands. Imagine a cottage of two
stories, with a bench before the door; the stable
and kitchen in a suite, so that Modestine and I
could hear each other dining; furniture of the
plainest, earthen floors, a single bed-chamber for
travellers, and that without any convenience but
beds. In the kitchen cooking and eating go for-
ward side by side, and the family sleep at night.
Any one who has a fancy to wash must do so in
public at the common table. The food is some-
times spare; hard fish and omelette have been
my portion more than once; the wine is of the
smallest, the brandy abominable to man; and the
visit of a fat sow, grouting under the table and
VELAY 29
rubbing against your legs, is no impossible accom-
paniment to dinner.
But the people of the inn, in nine cases out of
ten, show themselves friendly and considerate. As
soon as you cross the doors you cease to be a
stranger; and although this peasantry are rude
and forbidding on the highway, they show a tinc-
ture of kind breeding when you share their hearth.
At Bouchet, for instance, I uncorked my bottle of
Beaujolais, and asked the host to join me. He
would take but little.
" I am an amateur of such wine, do you see? "
he said, "and I am capable of leaving you not
enough/'
In these hedge-inns the traveller is expected to
eat with his own knife; unless he ask, no other
will be supplied : with a glass, a whang of bread,
and an iron fork, the table is completely laid. My
knife was cordially admired by the landlord of
Bouchet, and the spring filled him with wonder.
" I should never have guessed that," he said,
" I would bet/' he added, weighing it in his hand,
" that this cost you not less than five francs/
30 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
When I told him it had cost me twenty, his jaw
dropped.
He was a mild, handsome, sensible, friendly
old man, astonishingly ignorant. His wife, who
was not so pleasant in her manners, knew how to
read, although I do not suppose she ever did so.
She had a share of brains and spoke with a cutting
emphasis, like one who ruled the roast.
"My man knows nothing," she said, with an
angry nod; "he is like the beasts."
And the old gentleman signified acquiescence
with his head. There was no contempt on her
part, and no shame on his ; the facts were accepted
loyally, and no more about the matter.
I was tightly cross-examined about my journey;
and the lady understood in a moment, and sketched
out what I should put into my book when I got
home. "Whether people harvest or not in such
or such a place; if there were forests; studies
of manners ; what, for example, I and the master
of the house say to you; the beauties of Nature,
and all that." m And she interrogated me with a
look.
VELAY 31
" It is just that," said I.
" You see/' she added to her husband, " I under-
stood that"
They were both much interested by the story
of my misadventures.
" In the morning," said the husband, " I will
make you something better than your cane. Such
a beast as that feels nothing; it is in the proverb
dur comme un ane; you might beat her insen-
sible with a cudgel, and yet you would arrive
nowhere."
Something better! I little knew what he was
offering.
The sleeping-room was furnished with two beds.
I had one; and I will own I was a little abashed
to find a young man and his wife and child in the
act of mounting into the other. This was my first
experience of the sort ; and if I am always to feel
equally silly and extraneous, I pray God it be my
last as well. I kept my eyes to myself, and know
nothing of the woman except that she had beauti-
ful arms, and seemed no whit abashed by my
appearance. As a matter of fact, the situation was
32 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
more trying to me than to the pair, A pair keep
each other in countenance; it is the single gentle-
man who has to blush. But I could not help attrib-
uting my sentiments to the husband, and sought
to conciliate his tolerance with a cup of brandy
from my flask. He told me that he was a cooper
of Alais travelling to St. Etienne in search of
work, and that in his spare moments he followed
the fatal calling of a maker of matches. Me he
readily enough divined to be a brandy merchant.
I was up first in the morning (Monday, Sep-
tember 23d), and hastened my toilette guiltily, so
as to leave a clear field for madam, the cooper's
wife. I drank a bowl of milk, and set off to ex-
plore the neighbourhood of Bouchet. It was perish-
ing cold, a grey, windy, wintry morning; misty
clouds flew fast and low ; the wind piped over the
naked platform ; and the only speck of colour was
away behind Mount Mezenc and the eastern hills,
where the sky still wore the orange of the dawn.
It was five in the morning, and four thousand
feet above the sea; and I had to bury my hands
in my pockets and trot. People were trooping out
VELAY J3
to the labours of the field by twos and threes, and
all turned round to stare upon the stranger. I had
seen them coming back last night, I saw them
going afield again; and there was the life of
Bouchet in a nutshell.
When I came back to the inn for a bit of break-
fast, the landlady was in the kitchen combing out
her daughter's hair; and I made her my compli-
ments upon its beauty.
" O no," said the mother; " it is not so beautiful
as it ought to be. Look, it is too fine."
Thus does a wise peasantry console itself under
adverse physical circumstances, and, by a startling
democratic process, the defects of the majority
decide the type of beauty.
"And where," said I, " is monsieur? "
"The master of the house is up-stairs," she
answered, "making you a goad."
Blessed be the man who invented goads ! Blessed
the innkeeper of Bouchet St. Nicolas, who intro-
duced me to their use ! This plain wand, with an
eighth of an inch of pin, was indeed a sceptre when
he put it in my hands* Thenceforward Modestine
34 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
was my slave. A prick, and she passed the most
inviting stable-door. A prick, and she broke forth
into a gallant little trotlet that devoured the miles.
It was not a remarkable speed, when all was said ;
and we took four hours to cover ten miles at the
best of it. But what a heavenly change since
yesterday 1 No more wielding of the ugly cudgel ;
no more flailing with an aching arm; no more
broadsword exercise, but a discreet and gentle-
manly fence. And what although now and then
a drop of blood should appear on Modestine's
mouse-coloured wedge-like rump? I should have
preferred it otherwise, indeed; but yesterday's
exploits had purged my heart of all humanity.
The perverse little devil, since she would not be
taken with kindness, must even go with pricking.
It was bleak and bitter cold, and, except a cav-
alcade of stride-legged ladies and a pair of post-
runners, the road was dead solitary all the way to
Pradelles. I scarce remember an incident but one.
A handsome foal with a bell about his neck came
cEarging up to us upon a stretch of common,
sniffed the air martially as one about to do great
VELAY 35
deeds, and, suddenly thinking otherwise in his
green young heart, put about and galloped off
as he had come, the bell tinkling in the wind. For
a long while afterwards I saw his noble attitude
as he drew up, and heard the note of his bell ; and
when I struck the highroad, the song of the tele-
graph-wires seemed to continue the same music.
Pradelles stands on a hillside, high above the
Allier, surrounded by rich meadows. They were
cutting aftermath on all sides, which gave the
neighbourhood, this gusty autumn morning, an
untimely smell of hay. On the opposite bank of
the Allier the land kept mounting for miles to
the horizon: a tanned and sallow autumn land-
scape, with black blots of fir-wood and white roads
wandering through the hills. Over all this the
clouds shed a uniform and purplish shadow, sad
and somewhat menacing, exaggerating height and
distance, and throwing into still higher relief the
twisted ribbons of the highway. It was a cheer-
less prospect, but one stimulating to a traveller.
For I was now upon the limit of Velay, and all
that I beheld lay in another county wild Ge-
36 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
vaudan, mountainous, uncultivated, and but re-
cently disforested from terror of the wolves.
Wolves, alas, like bandits, seem to flee the trav-
eller's advance; and you may trudge through all
our comfortable Europe, and not meet with an
adventure worth the name. But here, if any
where, a man was on the frontiers of hope. For
this was the land of the ever-memorable BEAST,
the Napoleon Buonaparte of wolves. What a
career was his! He lived ten months at free
quarters in Gevaudan and Vivarais ; he ate women
and children and " shepherdesses celebrated for
their beauty"; he pursued armed horsemen; he
has been seen at broad noonday chasing a post-
chaise and outrider along the king's highroad, and
chaise and outrider fleeing before him at the gallop.
He was placarded like a political offender, and ten
thousand francs were offered for his head. And
yet, when he was shot and sent to Versailles, be-
hold! a common wolf, and even small for that.
"Though I could reach from pole to pole," sang
Alexander Pope ; the little corporal shook Europe ;
and if all wolves had been as this wolf, they would
VELAY 37
have changed the history of man. M. Elie Berthet
has made him the hero of a novel, which I have
read, and do not wish to read again.
I hurried over my lunch, and was proof against
the landlady's desire that I should visit our Lady
of Pradelles, "who performed many miracles,
although she was of wood"; and before thr.ee
quarters of an hour I was goading Modestine
down the steep descent that leads to Langogne on
the Allier. On both sides of the road, in big dusty
fields, farmers were preparing for next spring.
Every fifty yards a yoke of great-necked stolid
oxen were patiently haling at the plough. I saw
one of these mild, f ormidable servants of the glebe,
who took a sudden interest in Modestine and me.
The furrow down which he was journeying lay at
an angle to the road, and his head was solidly fixed
to the yoke like those of caryatides below a pon-
derous cornice; but he screwed round his big
honest eyes and followed us with a ruminating
look, until his master bade him turn the plough
and proceed to reascend the field. From all these
furrowing ploughshares, from the feet of oxen,
3 8 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
from a labourer here and there who was breaking
the dry clods with a hoe, the wind carried away
a thin dust like so much smoke. It was a fine,
busy, breathing, rustic landscape; and as I con-
tinued to descend, the highlands of Gevaudan kept
mounting in front of me against the sky.
I had crossed the Loire the day before; now
I was to cross the Allier; so near are these two
confluents in their youth. Just at the bridge of
Langogne, as the long-promised rain was begin-
ning to fall, a lassie of some seven or eight
addressed me in the sacramental phrase, " D'oti'st
que vous venez?" She did it with so high an
air that she set me laughing; and this cut her to
the quick. She was evidently one who reckoned
on respect, and stood looking after me in silent
dudgeon, as I crossed the bridge and entered the
county of Gevaudan.
TJPPKR GEVAUDAN
'' The txiay also here was very weatrf-
some through dirt and sttzo&t-
tt#ss; nor was t&er* on. a.11 tJits
ground so much as one z>* ^^
victualling -house wherein to -re-
fresh th* feebler sort." Pil-
grim's Progress.
UPPER GEVAUDAN
A CAMP IN THE DARK
THE next day (Tuesday, September 24th),
it was two o'clock in the afternoon be-
fore I got my journal written up and
my knapsack repaired, for I was determined to
carry my knapsack in the future and have no
more ado with baskets; and half an hour after-
wards I set out for Le Cheylard TEveque, a place
on the borders of the forest of Mercoire. A man,
I was told, should walk there in an hour and a
half; and I thought it scarce too ambitious to
suppose that a man encumbered with a donkey
might cover the same distance in four hours.
All the way up the long hill from Langogne it
rained and hailed alternately; the wind kept fresh-
ening steadily, although slowly ; plentiful hurrying
clouds some dragging veils of straight rain-
shower, others massed and luminous, as though
42 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
promising snow careered out of the north and
followed me along my way. I was soon out of
the cultivated basin of the Allier, and away from
the ploughing oxen, and such-like sights of the
country. Moor, heathery marsh, tracts of rock
and pines, woods of birch all jewelled with the
autumn yellow, here and there a few naked cot-
tages and bleak fields, these were the characters
of the country. Hill and valley followed valley
and hill; the little green and stony cattle-tracks
wandered in and out of one another, split into
three or four, died away in marshy hollows, and
began again sporadically on hillsides or at the
borders of a wood.
There was no direct road to Cheylard, and It
was no easy affair to make a passage in this un-
even country and through this intermittent laby-
rinth of tracks. It must have been about four
when I struck Sagnerousse, and went on my way
rejoicing in a sure point of departure. Two hours
afterwards, the dusk rapidly falling, in a lull of
the wind, I issued from a fir-wood where I had
long been wandering, and found, not the looked-
UPPER GEVAUDAN 43
for village, but another marish bottom among
rough-and-tumble hills. For some time past I
had heard the ringing of cattle-bells ahead; and
now, as I came out of the skirts of the wood, I
saw near upon a dozen cows and perhaps as many
more black figures, which I conjectured to be chil-
dren, although the mist had almost unrecognisably
exaggerated their forms. These were all silently
following each other round and round in a circle,
now taking hands, now breaking up with chains
and reverences. A dance of children appeals to
very innocent and lively thoughts; but, at night-
fall on the marshes, the thing was eerie and fan-
tastic to behold. Even I, who am well enough
read in Herbert Spencer, felt a sort of silence fall
for an instant on my mind. The next, I was
pricking Modestine forward, and guiding her like
an unruly ship through the open. In a path, she
went doggedly ahead of her own accord, as be-
fore a fair wind; but once on the turf or among
heather, and the brute became demented. The
tendency of lost travellers to go round in a circle
was developed in her to the degree of passion, and
44 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
it took all the steering I had in me to keep even
a decently straight course through a single field.
While I was thus desperately tacking through
the bog, children and cattle began to disperse,
until only a pair of girls remained behind. From
these I sought direction on my path. The peas-
antry in general were but little disposed to coun-
sel a wayfarer. One old devil simply retired into
his house, and barricaded the door on my ap-
proach ; and I might beat and shout myself hoarse,
he turned a deaf ear. Another, having given me
a direction which, as I found afterwards, I had
misunderstood, complacently watched me going
wrong without adding a sign. He did not care
a stalk of parsley if I wandered all night upon
the hills! As for these two girls, they were a
paii of impudent sly sluts, with not a thought
but mischief. One put out her tongue at me,
the other bade me follow the cows; and they
both giggled and jogged each other's elbows. The
Beast of G6vaudan ate about a hundred children
of this district; I began to think of him with
sympathy.
UPPER GEVAUDAN 45
Leaving the girls, I pushed on through the bog,
and got into another wood and upon a well-marked
road. It grew darker and darker. Modestine,
suddenly beginning to smell mischief, bettered the
pace of her own accord, and from that time for-
ward gave me no trouble. It was the first sign
of intelligence I had occasiort to remark in her.
At the same time, the wind freshened into half
a gale, and another heavy discharge of rain came
flying up out of the north. At the other side of
the wood I sighted some red windows in the dusk.
This was the hamlet of Fouzilhic; three houses
on a hillside, near a wood of birches. Here I
found a delightful old man, who came a little
way with me in the rain to put me safely on the
road for Cheylard. He would hear of no reward ;
but shook his hands above his head almost as if
in menace, and refused volubly and shrilly, in
unmitigated patois.
All seemed right at last. My thoughts began
to turn upon dinner and a fireside, and my heart
was agreeably softened in my bosom. Alas, and
I was on the brink of new and greater miseries!
46 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
Suddenly, at a single swoop, the night fell. I
have been abroad in many a black night, but never
in a blacker. A glimmer of rocks, a glimmer of
the track where it was well beaten, a certain
fleecy density, or night within night, for a tree,
this was all that I could discriminate. The sky
was simply darkness overhead; even the flying
clouds pursued their way invisibly to human eye-
sight I could not distinguish my hand at arm's
length from the track, nor my goad, at the same
distance, from the meadows or the sky.
Soon the road that I was following split, after
the fashion of the country, into three or four in
a piece of rocky meadow. Since Modestine had
shown such a fancy for beaten roads, I tried her
instinct in this predicament. But the instinct of
an ass is what might be expected from the name;
in half a minute she was clambering round and
round among some boulders, as lost a donkey as
you would wish to see. I should have camped
long before had I been properly provided; but
as this was to be so short a stage, I had brought
no wine, no bread for myself, and a little over a
UPPER GEVAUDAN 47
pound for my lady-friend, Add to this, that I
and Modestine were both handsomely wetted by
the showers. But now, if I could have found
some water, I should have camped at once in
spite of all. Water, however, being entirely ab-
sent, except in the form of rain, I determined
to return to Fouzilhic, and ask a guide a little
further on my way "a little farther lend thy
guiding hand/'
The thing was easy to decide, hard to accom-
plish. In this sensible roaring blackness I was
sure of nothing but the direction of the wind.
To this I set my face; the road had disappeared,
and I went across country, now in marshy opens,
now baffled by walls unscalable to Modestine, until
I came once more in sight of some red windows.
This time they were differently disposed. It was
not Fouzilhic, but Fouzilhac, a hamlet little dis-
tant from the other in space, but worlds away in
the spirit of its inhabitants. I tied Modestine to
a gate, and groped forward, stumbling among
rocks, plunging mid-leg in bog, until I gained the
entrance of the village. In the first lighted house
48 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
there was a woman who would not open to me;
She could do nothing, she cried to me through
the door, being alone and lame; but if I would
apply at the next house, there was a man who
could help me if he had a mind.
They came to the next door in force, a man,
two women, and a girl, and brought a pair of
lanterns to examine the wayfarer. The man was
not ill-looking, but had a shifty smile. He leaned
against the door-post, and heard me state my case.
All I asked was a guide as far as Cheylard.
" C'est que, voyez-vous, il fait noir" said he.
I told him that was just my reason for requir-
ing help.
"I understand that/' said he, looking uncom-
fortable ; " mais c'est de la peine."
I was willing to pay, I said. He shook his
head. I rose as high as ten francs; but he con-
tinued to shake his head. "Name your own
price, then," said I.
" Ce n'est pas ga" he said at length, and with
evident difficulty; "but I am not going to cross
the door mais je ne sortirai pas de la porte"
UPPER GEVAUDAN 49
I grew a little warm, and asked him what he
proposed that I should do.
"Where are you going beyond Cheylard?" he
asked by way of answer.
" That is no affair of yours," I returned, for I
was not going to indulge his bestial curiosity; "it
changes nothing in my present predicament."
" C'est wai, ga" he acknowledged, with a laugh;
" oui, c'est vrai. Et d'oti venez-vous ? "
A better man than I might have felt nettled.
" O," said I, " I am not going to answer any
of your questions, so you may spare yourself the
trouble of putting them. I am late enough already;
I want help. If you will not guide me yourself,
at least help me to find some one else who will."
" Hold on," he cried suddenly. " Was it not
you who passed in the meadow while it was still
day?"
"Yes, yes," said the girl, whom I had not
hitherto recognised; "it was monsieur; I told
him to follow the cow."
" As for you, mademoiselle," said I, " you are
a farceuse"
50 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
"And/ 5 added the man, "what the devil have
you done to be still here? "
What the devil, indeed! But there I was. "The
great thing/' said I, " is to make an end of it " ;
and once more proposed that he should help me
to find a guide.
" Cest que" he said again, " tfest que il fait
noir"
"Very well," said I; "take one of your lan-
terns."
" No," he cried, drawing a thought backward,
and again intrenching himself behind one of his
former phrases ; " I will not cross the door."
I looked at him. I saw unaffected terror strug-
gling on his face with unaffected shame; he was
smiling pitifully and wetting his lip with his
tongue, like a detected school-boy. I drew a brief
picture of my state, and asked him what I was
to do.
" I don't know," he said; "I will not cross the
door."
Here was the Beast of Gevaudan, and no mis-
take.
UPPER GEVAUDAN 51
" Sir," said I, with my most commanding man-
ners, " you are a coward."
And with that I turned my back upon the family
party, who hastened to retire within their forti-
fications; and the famous door was closed again,
but not till I had overheard the sound of laughter.
Filia barbara pater barbarior. Let me say it in
the plural : the Beasts of Gevaudan.
The lanterns had somewhat dazzled me, and I
ploughed distressfully among stones and rubbish-
heaps. All the other houses in the village were
both dark and silent; and though I knocked at
here and there a door, my knocking was un-
answered. It was a bad business; I gave up
Fouzilhac with my curses. The rain had stopped,
and the wind, which still kept rising, began to
dry my coat and trousers. " Very well," thought
I, "water or no water, I must camp." But the
first thing was to return to Modestine. I am
pretty sure I was twenty minutes groping for my
lady in the dark; arid if it had not been for the
unkindly services of the bog, into which I once
more stumbled, I might have still been groping
5<i TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
for her at the dawn. My next business was to
gain the shelter of a wood, for the wind was cold
as well as boisterous. How, in this well-wooded
district, I should have been so long in finding one,
is another of the insoluble mysteries of this day's
adventures; but I will take my oath that I put
near an hour to the discovery.
At last black trees began to show upon my left,
and, suddenly crossing the road, made a cave of
unmitigated blackness right in front. I call it a
cave without exaggeration; to pass below that
arch of leaves was like entering a dungeon. I felt
about until my hand encountered a stout branch;
and to this I tied Modestine, a haggard, drenched,
desponding donkey. Then I lowered my pack,
laid it along the wall on the margin of the road,
and unbuckled the straps. I knew well enough
where the lantern was; but where were the can-
dles? I groped and groped among the tumbled
articles, and, while I was thus groping, suddenly
I touched the spirit-lamp. Salvation ! This would
serve my turn as well. The wind roared unweary-
ingly among the trees; I could hear the boughs
UPPER GEVAUDAN 53
tossing and the leaves churning through half a
mile of forest; yet the scene of my encampment
was not only as black as the pit, but admirably
sheltered. At the second match the wick caught
flame. The light was both livid and shifting; but
it cut me off from the universe, and doubled the
darkness of the surrounding night.
I tied Modestine more conveniently for herself,
and broke up half the black bread for her supper,
reserving the other half against the morning.
Then I gathered what I should want within reach,
took off my wet boots and gaiters, which I
wrapped in my waterproof, arranged my knapsack
for a pillow under the flap of my sleeping-bag,
insinuated my limbs into the interior, and buckled
myself in like a bambino. I opened a tin 1 of
Bologna sausage and broke a cake of chocolate,
and that was all I had to eat. It may sound
offensive, but I ate them together, bite by bite,
by way of bread and meat. All I had to wash
down this revolting mixture was neat brandy: a
revolting beverage in itself. But I was rare and
hungry; ate well, and smoked one of the best
54 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
cigarettes in my experience. Then I put a stone in
my straw hat, pulled the flap of my fur cap over my
neck and eyes, put my revolver ready to my hand,
and snuggled well down among the sheepskins.
I questioned at first if I were sleepy, for I felt
my heart beating faster than usual, as if with an
agreeable excitement to which my mind remained
a stranger. But as soon as my eyelids touched,
that subtle glue leaped between them, and they
would no more come separate.
The wind among the trees was my lullaby.
Sometimes it sounded for minutes together with a
steady even rush, not rising nor abating; and
again it would swell and burst like a great crash-
ing breaker, and the trees would patter me all
over with big drops from the rain of the afternoon.
Night after night, in my own bedroom in the
country, I have given ear to this perturbing concert
of the wind among the woods ; but whether it was
a difference in the trees, or the lie of the ground,
or because I was myself outside and in the midst
of it, the fact remains that the wind sang to a
different tune among these woods of Gevaudan. I
UPPER GEVAUDAN 55
hearkened and hearkened; and meanwhile sleep
took gradual possession of my body and subdued
my thoughts and senses ; but still my last waking
effort was to listen and distinguish, and my last
conscious state was one of wonder at the foreign
clamour in my ears.
Twice in the course of the dark hours once
when a stone galled me underneath the sack, and
again when the poor patient Modestine, growing
angry, pawed and stamped upon the road I was
recalled for a brief while to consciousness, and
saw a star or two overhead, and the lace-like edge
of the foliage against the sky. When I awoke for
the third time (Wednesday, September 25th), the
world was flooded with a blue light, the mother of
the dawn. I saw the leaves labouring in the wind
and the ribbon of the road; and, on turning my
head, there was Modestine tied to a beech, and
standing half across the path in an attitude of
inimitable patience. I closed my eyes again, and
set to thinking over the experience of the night
I was surprised to find how easy and pleasant it
had been, even in this tempestuous weather. The
56 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
stone which annoyed me would not have been
there, had I not been forced to camp blindfold in
the opaque night; and I had felt no other incon-
venience, except when my feet encountered the
lantern or the second volume of Peyrat's Pastors
of the Desert among the mixed contents of my
sleeping-bag; nay more, I had felt not a touch of
cold, and awakened with unusually lightsome and
clear sensations.
With that, I shook myself, got once more into
my boots and gaiters, and, breaking up the rest
of the bread for Modestine, strolled about to see
in what part of the world I had awakened.
Ulysses, left on Ithaca, and with a mind unsettled
by the goddess, was not more pleasantly astray.
I have been after an adventure all my life, a pure
dispassionate adventure, such as befell early and
heroic voyagers ; and thus to be found by morning
in a random woodside nook in G^vaudan not
knowing north from south, as strange to my sur-
roundings as the first man upon the earth, an
inland castaway was to find a fraction of my
day-dreams realised, I was on the skirts of a
UPPER GEVAUDAN 57
little wood of birch, sprinkled with a few beeches ;
behind, it adjoined another wood of fir; and in
front, it broke up and went down in open order
into a shallow and meadowy dale. All around
there were bare hill-tops, some near, some far
away, as the perspective closed or opened, but none
apparently much higher than the rest. The wind
huddled the trees. The golden specks of autumn
in the birches tossed shiveringly. Overhead the
sky was full of strings and shreds of vapour, fly-
ing, vanishing, reappearing, and turning about an
axis like tumblers, as the wind hounded them
through heaven. It was wild weather and famish-
ing cold. I ate some chocolate, swallowed a
mouthful of brandy, and smoked a cigarette before
the cold should have time to disable my fingers.
And by the time I had got all this done, and had
made my pack and bound it on the pack-saddle,
the day was tiptoe on the threshold of the east.
We had not gone many steps along the lane, before
the sun, still invisible to me, sent a glow of gold
over some cloud mountains that lay ranged along
the eastern sky.
58 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
The wind had us on the stern, and hurried us
bitingly forward. I buttoned myself into my
coat, and walked on in a pleasant frame of mind
with all men, when suddenly, at a corner, there
was Fouzilhic once more in front of me. Nor
only that, but there was the old gentleman who
had escorted me so far the night before, running
out of his house at sight of me, with hands
upraised in horror.
"My poor boy!" he cried, "what does this
mean?"
I told him what had happened. He beat his old
hands like clappers in a mill, to think how lightly
he had let me go; but when he heard of the man
of Fouzilhac, anger and depression seized upon his
mind.
" This time, at least," said he, " there shall be
no mistake."
And he limped along, for he was very rheu-
matic, for about half a mile, and until I was almost
within sight of Cheylard, the destination I had
hunted for so long.
CHEYLARD AND LUC
CANDIDLY, it seemed little worthy of all
this searching, A few broken ends of
village, with no particular street, but a
succession of open places heaped with logs and
fagots; a couple of tilted crosses, a shrine to our
Lady of all Graces on the summit of a little hill;
and all this, upon a rattling highland river, in the
corner of a naked valley. What went ye out for
to see? thought I to myself. But the place had a
life of its own. I found a board commemorating
the liberalities of Cheylard for the past year, hung
up, like a banner, in the diminutive and tottering
church. In 1877, ft appeared, the inhabitants sub-
scribed forty-eight francs ten centimes for the
" Work of the Propagation of the Faith/' Some
of this, I could not help hoping, would be applied
to my native land. Cheylard scrapes together
halfpence for the darkened souls in Edinburgh;
60 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
while Balquidder and Dunrossness bemoan the
ignorance of Rome. Thus, to the high entertain-
ment of the angels, do we pelt each other with,
evangelists, like school-boys bickering in the
snow.
The inn was again singularly unpfetentious.
The whole furniture of a not ill-to-do family was
in the kitchen: the beds, the cradle, the clothes,'
the plate-rack, the meal-chest, and the photograpti
of the parish priest. There were five children, one
of whom was set to its morning prayers at the
stair-foot soon after my arrival, and a sixth would
erelong be forthcoming. I was kindly received by
these good folk. They were much interested in
my misadventure. The wood in which I had slept
belonged to them; the man of Fouzilhac they
thought a monster of iniquity, and counselled me
warmly to summon him at law "because I
might have died." The good wife was horror-
stricken to see me drink over a pint of uncreamed
milk.
" You will do yourself an evil/' she said. " Per*
mit me to boil it for you/'
UPPER GEVAUDAN 61
After I had begun the morning on this delight-
ful liquor, she having an infinity of things to
arrange, I was permitted, nay requested, to make
a bowl of chocolate for myself. My boots and
gaiters were hung up to dry, and, seeing me try-
ing to write my journal on my knee, the eldest
daughter let down a hinged table in the chimney-
corner for my convenience. Here I wrote, drank
my chocolate, and finally ate an omelette before
I left. The table was thick with dust; for, as
they explained, it was not used except in winter
weather. I had a clear look up the vent, through
brown agglomerations of soot and blue vapour,
to the sky; and whenever a handful of twigs
was thrown on to the fire, my legs were scorched
by the blaze.
The husband had begun life as a muleteer, and
when I came to charge Modestine showed himself
full of the prudence of his art. " You will have
to change this package," said he; "it ought to be
in two parts, and then you might have double the
weight."
I explained that I wanted no more weight; and
6a TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
for no donkey hitherto created would I cut my
sleeping-bag in two.
"It fatigues her, however," said the inn-
keeper; "it fatigues her greatly on the march.
Look. 5 '
Alas, there were her two forelegs no better than
raw beef on the inside, and blood was running
from under her tail. They told me when I left,
and I was ready to believe it, that before a few
days I should come to love Modestine like a dog.
Three days had passed, we had shared some mis-
adventures, and my heart was still as cold as a
potato towards my beast of burthen. She was
pretty enough to look at; but then she had
given proof of dead stupidity, redeemed indeed
by patience, but aggravated by flashes of sorry
and ill-judged light-heartedness. And I own this
new discovery seemed another point against her.
What the devil was the good of a she-ass if she
could not carry a sleeping-bag and a few neces-
saries? I saw the end of the fable rapidly ap-
proaching, when I should have to carry Modestine.
JEsop was the man to know the world 1 I assure
UPPER GEVAUDAN 63
you I set out with heavy thoughts upon my short
day's march.
It was not only heavy thoughts about Modes-
tine that weighted me upon the way; it was a
leaden business altogether. For first, the wind
blew so rudely that I had to hold on the pack
with one hand from Cheylard to Luc; and second,
my road lay through one of the most beggarly
countries in the world. It was like the worst of
the Scotch Highlands, only worse; cold, naked,
and ignoble, scant of wood, scant of heather, scant
of life. A road and some fences broke the un-
varying waste, and the line of the road was
marked by upright pillars, to serve in time of
snow.
Why any one should desire to visit either Luc
or Cheylard is more than my much-inventing spirit
can suppose. For my part, I travel not to go
anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake*
The great affair is to move ; to feel the needs and
hitches of our life- more nearly; to come down
off this feather-bed of civilisation, and find the
globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting
64 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
flints. Alas, as we get up in life, and are more
preoccupied with our affairs, even a holiday is a
thing that must be worked for. To hold a pack
upon a pack-saddle against a gale out of the
freezing north is no high industry, but it is one
that serves to occupy and compose the mind. And
when the present is so exacting, who can annoy
himself about the future?
I came out at length above the Allier. A more
unsightly prospect at this season of the year it
would be hard to fancy. Shelving hills rose round
it on all sides, here dabbled with wood and fields,
there rising to peaks alternately naked and hairy
with pines. The colour throughout was black or
ashen, and came to a point in the ruins of the
castle of Luc, which pricked up impudently from
below my feet, carrying on a pinnacle a tall white
statue of our Lady, which, I heard with interest,
weighed fifty quintals, and was to be dedicated
on the 6th of October. Through this sorry land-
scape trickled the Allier and a tributary of nearly
equal size, which came down to join it through a
broad nude valley in Vivarais. The weather had
UPPER GEVAUDAN 65
somewhat lightened, and the clouds massed in
squadron; but the fierce wind still hunted them
through heaven, and cast great ungainly splashes
of shadow and sunlight over the scene.
Luc itself was a straggling double file of houses
wedged between hill and river. It had no beauty,
nor was there any notable feature, save the old
castle overhead with its fifty quintals of brand-
new Madonna. But the inn was clean and large.
The kitchen, with its two box-beds hung with clean
check curtains, with its wide stone chimney, its
chimney-shelf four yards long and garnished with
lanterns and religious statuettes, its array of chests
and pair of ticking clocks, was the very model of
what a kitchen ought to be; a melodrama kitchen,
suitable for bandits or noblemen in disguise. Nor
was the scene disgraced by the landlady, a hand-
some, silent, dark old woman, clothed and hooded
in black like a nun. Even the public bedroom had
a character of its own, with the long deal tables
and benches, where fifty might have dined, set out
as for a harvest-home, and the three box-beds
along the wall. In one of these, lying on straw
66 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
and covered with a pair of table-napkins, did I do
penance all night long in goose-flesh and chattering
teeth, and sigh from time to time as I awakened
for my sheepskin sack and the lee of some great
wood,
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS
" I behold
ouse , the Brother food austere -
And what a.nt /, that I a.m here f "
MATTHEW ARNOLD.
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS
FATHER APOLLINARIS
NEXT morning (Thursday, 26th Septem-
ber) I took the road in a new order.
The sack was no longer doubled, but
hung at full length across the saddle, a green
sausage six feet long with a tuft of blue wool
hanging out of either end. It was more pictur-
esque, it spared the donkey, and, as I began to
see, it would insure stability, blow high, blow low.
But it was not without a pang that I had so de-
cided. For although I had purchased a new cord,
and made all as fast as I was able, I was yet
jealously uneasy lest the flaps should tumble out
and scatter my effects along the line of march.
My way lay up the bald valley of the river,
along the march of Vivarais and Gevaudan. The
hills of Gevaudan on the right were a little more
naked, if anything, than those of Vivarais upon the
7 o TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
left, and the former had a monopoly of a low dotty
underwood that grew thickly in the gorges and
died out in solitary burrs upon the shoulders and
the summits. Black bricks of fir-wood were plas-
tered here and there upon both sides, and here
and there were cultivated fields. A railway ran
beside the river; the only bit of railway in
Gevaudan, although there are many proposals
afoot and surveys being made, and even, as they
tell me, a station standing ready-built in Mende.
A year or two hence and this may be another
world. The desert is beleaguered. Now may
some Languedocian Wordsworth turn the sonnet
into patois : " Mountains and vales and floods,
heard YE that whistle? "
At a place called La Bastide I was directed to
leave the river, and follow a road that mounted
on the left among the hills of Vivarais, the
modern Ardeche; for I was now come within a
little way of my strange destination, the Trap-
pist monastery of our Lady of the Snows. The
sun came out as I left the shelter of a pine-wood,
and I beheld suddenly a fine wild landscape to the
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 71
south. High rocky hills, as blue as sapphire,
closed the view, and between these lay ridge upon
ridge, heathery, craggy, the sun glittering on veins
of rock, the underwood clambering in the hollows,
as rude as God made them at the first. There was
not a sign of man's hand in all the prospect; and
indeed not a trace of his passage, save where gen-
eration after generation had walked in twisted
foot-paths, in and out among the beeches, and up
and down upon the channelled slopes. The mists,
which had hitherto beset me, were now broken
into clouds, and fled swiftly and shone brightly
in the sun. I drew a long breath. It was grate-
ful to come, after so long, upon a scene of some
attraction for the human heart. I own I like
definite form in what my eyes are to rest upon;
and if landscapes were sold, like the sheets of
characters of my boyhood, one penny plain and
twopence coloured, I should go the length of two-
pence every day of my life.
But if things had grown better to the south, it
was- still desolate and inclement near at hand. A
spidery cross on every hill-top marked the neigh-
72 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
bourhood of a religious house; and a quarter of
a mile beyond, the outlook southward opening out
and growing bolder with every step, a white statue
of the Virgin at the corner of a young plantation
directed the traveller to our Lady of the Snows.
Here, then, I struck leftward, and pursued my
way, driving my secular donkey before me, and
creaking in my secular boots and gaiters, towards
the asylum of silence.
I had not gone very far ere the wind brought
to me the clanging of a bell, and somehow, I can
scarce tell why, my heart sank within me at the
sound. I have rarely approached anything with
more unaffected terror than the monastery of our
Lady of the Snows. This it is to have had a
Protestant education. And suddenly, on turning
a corner, fear took hold on me from head to foot
slavish superstitious fear; and though I did
not stop in my advance, yet I went on slowly,
like a man who should have passed a bourne un-
noticed, and strayed into the country of the dead.
For there upon the narrow new-made road, be-
tween the stripling pines, was a mediaeval friar,
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 73
fighting with a barrowful of turfs. Every Sunday
of my childhood I used to study the Hermits of
Marco Sadeler enchanting prints, full of wood
and field and mediaeval landscapes, as large as a
county, for the imagination to go a-travelling in;
and here, sure enough, was one of Marco Sadeler's
heroes. He was robed in white like any spectre,
and the hood falling back, in the instancy of his
contention with the barrow, disclosed a pate as
bald and yellow as a skull. He might have been
buried any time these thousand years, and all the
lively parts of him resolved into earth and broken
up with the farmer's harrow.
I was troubled besides in my mind as to eti-
quette. Durst I address a person who was under
a vow of silence? Clearly not. But drawing near,
I doffed my cap to him with a far-away supersti-
tious reverence. He nodded back, and cheerfully
addressed me. Was I going to the monastery?
Who was I? An Englishman? Ah, an Irish-
man, then?
" No," I said, " a Scotsman."
A Scotsman? 'Ah, he had never seen a Scots-
74 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
man before. And he looked me all over, his good,
honest, brawny countenance shining with interest,
as a boy might look upon a lion or an alligator.
From him I learned with disgust that I could not
be received at our Lady of the Snows; I might
get a meal, perhaps, but that was all. And then,
as our talk ran on, and it turned out that I was
not a pedlar, but a literary man, who drew land-
scapes and was going to write a book, he changed
his manner of thinking as to my reception (for
I fear they respect persons even in a Trappist mon-
astery), and told me I must be sure to ask for
the Father Prior, and state my case to him in
full. On second thoughts he determined to go
down with me himself ; he thought he could man-
age for me better. Might he say that I was a
geographer ?
No; I thought, in the interests of truth, he
positively might not.
"Very well, then" (with disappointment), "an
author."
It appeared he had been in a seminary with six
young Irishmen, all priests long since, who had
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS' 75
received newspapers and kept him informed o
the state of ecclesiastical affairs in England. And
he asked me eagerly after Dr. Pusey, for whose
conversion the good man had continued ever since
to pray night and morning.
" I thought he was very near the truth," he
said; " and he will reach it yet; there is so much
virtue in prayer/'
He must be a stiff ungodly Protestant who can
take anything but pleasure in this kind and hope-
ful story. While he was thus near the subject,
the good father asked me if I were a Christian;
and when he found I was not, or not after his
way, he glossed it over with great good-will.
The road which we were following, and which
this stalwart father had made with his own two
hands within the space of a year, came to a corner,
and showed us some white buildings a little further
on beyond the wood. At the same time, the bell
once more sounded abroad. We were hard upon
the monastery. Father Apollinaris (for that was
my companion's name) stopped me.
" I must not speak to you down there," he said.
76 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
" Ask for the Brother Porter, and all will be well.
But try to see me as you go out again through
the wood, where I may speak to you. I am
charmed to have made your acquaintance."
And then suddenly raising his arms, flapping his
fingers, and crying out twice, " I must not speak,
I must not speak ! " he ran away in front of me,
and disappeared into the monastery-door.
I own this somewhat ghastly eccentricity went
a good way to revive my terrors. But where one
was so good and simple, why should not all be
alike? I took heart of grace, and went forward
to the gate as fast as Modestine, who seemed to
have a disaffection for monasteries, would permit
It was the first door, in my acquaintance of her,
which she had not shown an indecent haste to
enter, I summoned the place in form, though
with a quaking heart. Father Michael, the Father
Hospitaller, and a pair of brown-robed brothers
came to the gate and spoke with me awhile. I
think my sack was the great attraction; it had
already beguiled the heart of poor Apollinaris,
who had charged me on my life to show it to the
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 77
Father Prior. But whether it was my address, or
the sack, or the idea speedily published among
that part of the brotherhood who attend on stran-
gers that I was not a pedlar after all, I found
no difficulty as to my reception. Modestine was
led away by a layman to the stables, and I and
my pack were received into our Lady of the
Snows.
THE MONKS
FATHER MICHAEL, a pleasant, fresh-
faced, smiling man, perhaps of thirty-five,
took me to the pantry, and gave me a
glass of liqueur to stay me until dinner. We
had some talk, or rather I should say he listened
to my prattle indulgently enough, but with an ab-
stracted air, like a spirit with a thing of clay. And
truly when I remember that I descanted princi-
pally on my appetite, and that it must have been
by that time more than eighteen hours since Father
Michael had so much as broken bread, I can well
understand that he would find an earthly savour
in my conversation. But his manner, though
superior, was exquisitely gracious; and I finci I
have a lurking curiosity as to Father Michael's
past.
The whet administered, I was left alone for a
little in the monastery garden. This is no more
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 79
than the main court, laid out in sandy paths and
beds of party-coloured dahlias, and with a foun-
tain and a black statue of the Virgin in the
centre. The buildings stand around it four-square,
bleak, as yet unseasoned by the years and weather,
and with no other features than a belfry and a
pair of slated gables. Brothers in white, brothers
in brown, passed silently along the sanded alleys;
and when I first came out, three hooded monks
were kneeling on the terrace at their prayers. A
naked hill commands the monastery upon one side,
and the wood commands it on the other. It lies
exposed to wind; the snow falls off and on from
October to May, and sometimes lies six weeks on
end; but if they stood in Eden, with a climate
like heaven's, the buildings themselves would offer
the same wintry and cheerless aspect; and for
my part, on this wild September day, before I
was called to dinner, I felt chilly in and out.
When I had eaten well and heartily, Brother
Ambrose, a hearty conversable Frenchman (for
all those who wait on strangers have the liberty
to speak), led me to a little room in that part of
8o TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
the building which is set apart for MM. les re-
traitants. It was clean and whitewashed, and
furnished with strict necessaries, a crucifix, a bust
of the late Pope, the Imitation in French, a book
of religious meditations, and the Life of Elizabeth
Seton, evangelist, it would appear, of North
America and of New England in particular. As
far as my experience goes, there is a fair field
for some more evangelisation in these quarters;
but think of Cotton Mather! I should like to
give him a reading of this little work in heaven,
where I hope he dwells; but perhaps he knows
all that already, and much more; and perhaps
he and Mrs. Seton are the dearest friends, and
gladly unite their voices in the everlasting psalm.
Over the table, to conclude the inventory of the
room, hung a set of regulations for MM. les re-
traitants: what services they should attend, when
they were to tell their beads or meditate, and
when they were to rise and go to rest. At the
foot was a notable N. B. : " Le temps libre est em-
ploye d I'examen de conscience, d la confession,
d faire de bonnes resolutions" etc. To make good
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 81
resolutions, indeed! You might talk as fruitfully
of making the hair grow on your head.
I had scarce explored my niche when Brother
Ambrose returned. An English boarder, it ap-
peared, would like to speak with me. I professed
my willingness, and the friar ushered in a fresh,
young little Irishman of fifty, a deacon of the
Church, arrayed in strict canonicals, and wearing
on his head what, in default of knowledge, I can
only call the ecclesiastical shako. He had lived
seven years in retreat at a convent of nuns in Bel-
gium, and now five at our Lady of the Snows ; he
never saw an English newspaper ; he spoke French
imperfectly, and had he spoken it like a native,
there was not much chance of conversation where
he dwelt. With this, he was a man eminently
sociable, greedy of news, and simple-minded like
a child. If I was pleased to have a guide about
the monastery, he was no less delighted to see an
English face and hear an English tongue*
He showed me his own room, where he passed
his time among breviaries, Hebrew bibles, and the
Waverley novels. Thence he kd me to the clois-
82 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
ters, into the chapter-house, through the vestry,
where the brothers' gowns and broad straw hats
were hanging up, each with his religious name
upon a board, names full of legendary suavity
and interest, such as Basil, Hilarion, Raphael, or
Pacifique; into the library, where were all the
works of Veuillot and Chateaubriand, and the
Odes et Ballades, if you please, and even Moliere,
to say nothing of innumerable fathers and a great
variety of local and general historians. Thence
my good Irishman took me round the workshops,
where brothers bake bread, and make cart-wheels,
and take photographs; where one superintends a
collection of curiosities, and another a gallery of
rabbits. For in a Trappist monastery each monk
has an occupation of his own choice, apart from
his religious duties and the general labours of the
house. Each must sing in the choir, if he has a
voice and ear, and join in the haymaking if he has .
a hand to stir; but in his private hours, although
he must be occupied, he may be occupied on what
he likes. Thus I was told that one brother was
engaged with literature; while Father Apollinaris
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 83
busies himself in making roads, and the Abbot
employs himself in binding books. It is not so
long since this Abbot was consecrated, by the way ;
and on that occasion, by a special grace, his mother
was permitted to enter the chapel and witness the
ceremony of consecration. A proud day for her
to have a son a mitred abbot; it makes you glad
to think they let her in.
In all these journeyings to and fro, many silent
fathers and brethren fell in our way. Usually they
paid no more regard to our passage than if we
had been a cloud ; but sometimes the good deacon
had a permission to ask of them, and it was
granted by a peculiar movement of the hands,
almost like that of a dog's paws in swimming, or
refused by the usual negative signs, and in either
case with lowered eyelids and a certain air of con-
trition, as of a man who was steering very close
to evil.
The monks, by special grace of their Abbot,
were still taking two meals a day; but it was
already time for their grand fast, which begins
somewhere in September and lasts till Easter, and
84 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
during which they eat but once in the twenty-
four hours, and that at two in the afternoon,
twelve hours after they have begun the toil and
vigil of the day. Their meals are scanty, but even
of these they eat sparingly; and though each is
allowed a small carafe of wine, many refrain from
this indulgence. Without doubt, the most of man-
kind grossly overeat themselves; our meals serve
not only for support, but as a hearty and natural
diversion from the labour of life. Although excess
may be hurtful, I should have thought this Trap-
pist regimen defective. And I am astonished, as
I look back, at the freshness of face and cheerful-
ness of manner of all whom I beheld. A happier
nor a healthier company I should scarce suppose
that I have ever seen. As a matter of fact, on
this bleak upland, and with the incessant occu-
pation of the monks, life is of an uncertain tenure,
and death no infrequent visitor, at our Lady of the
Snows. This, at least, was what was told me.
But if they die easily, they must live healthily in
the meantime, for they seemed all firm of flesh
and high i uolour; and the only morbid sign that
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 85
I could observe, an unusual brilliancy of eye, was
one that served rather to increase the general im-
pression of vivacity and strength.
Those with whom I spoke were singularly
sweet-tempered, with what I can only call a holy
cheerfulness in air and conversation. There is a
note, in the direction to visitors, telling them not
to be offended at the curt speech of those who
wait upon them, since it is proper to monks to
speak little. The note might have been spared;
to a man the hospitallers were all brimming with
innocent talk, and, in my experience of the mon-
astery, it was easier to begin than to break off a
conversation. With the exception of Father
Michael, who was a man of the world, they showed
themselves full of kind and healthy interest in all
sorts of subjects in politics, in voyages, in my
sleeping-sack and not without a certain pleasure
in the sound of their own voices.
As for those who are restricted to silence, I can
only wonder how they bear their solemn and
cheerless isolation. And yet, apart from any view
of mortification, I can see a certain policy, not only
86 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
in the exclusion of women, but in this vow of
silence. I have had some experience of lay phal-
ansteries, of an artistic, not to say a bacchanalian,
character; and seen more than one association
easily formed, and yet more easily dispersed. With
a Cistercian rule, perhaps they might have lasted
longer. In the neighbourhood of women it is but
a touch-and-go association that can be formed
among defenceless men; the stronger electricity
is sure to triumph; the dreams of boyhood, the
schemes of youth, are abandoned after an inter-
view of ten minutes, and the arts and sciences, and
professional male jollity, deserted at once for two
sweet eyes and a caressing accent. And next after
this, the tongue is the great divider.
I am almost ashamed to pursue this worldly
criticism of a religious rule; but there is yet an-
other point in which the Trappist order appeals
to me as a model of wisdom. By two in the
morning the clapper goes tipon the bell, and so on,
hour by hour, and sometimes quarter by quarter,
till eight, the hour of rest; so infinitesimally is
the day divided among different occupations. The
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 87
man who keeps rabbits, for example, hurries from
his hutches to the chapel, the chapter-room, or the
refectory, all day long : every hour he has an office
to sing, a duty to perform; from two, when he
rises in the dark, till eight, when he returns to
receive the comfortable gift of sleep, he is upon
his feet and occupied with manifold and changing
business, I know many persons, worth several
thousands in the year, who are not so fortunate
in the disposal of their lives. Into how many
houses would not the note of the monastery-bell,
dividing the day into manageable portions, bring
peace of mind and healthful activity of body? We
speak of hardships, but the true hardship is to be
a dull fool, and permitted to mismanage life in
our own dull and foolish manner.
From this point of view, we may perhaps better
understand the monk's existence. A long novi-
tiate, and every proof of constancy of mind and
strength of body is required before admission to
the order; but I could not find that many were
discouraged. In the photographer's studio, which
figures so strangely among the outbuildings, my
88 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
eye was attracted by the portrait of a young fellow
in the uniform of a private of foot. This was
one of the novices, who came of the age for ser-
vice, and marched and drilled and mounted guard
for the proper time among the garrison of Algiers.
Here was a man who had surely seen both sides
of life before deciding; yet as soon as he was set
free from service he returned to finish his novitiate.
This austere rule entitles a man to heaven as
by right. When the Trappist sickens, he quits not
his habit; he lies in the bed of death as he has
prayed and laboured in his frugal and silent exist-
ence; and when the Liberator comes, at the very
moment, even before they have carried him in his
robe to lie his little last in the chapel among con-
tinual chantings, joy-bells break forth, as if for
a marriage, from the slated belfry, and proclaim
throughout the neighbourhood that another soul
has gone to God.
At night, under the conduct of my kind Irish-
man, I took my place in the gallery to hear com-
pline and Salve Regina, with which the Cistercians
bring every day to a conclusion. There were none
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 89
of those circumstances which strike the Protestant
as childish or as tawdry in the public offices of
Rome. A stern simplicity, heightened by the
romance of the surroundings, spoke directly to the
heart. I recall the whitewashed chapel, the hooded
figures in the choir, the lights alternately occluded
and revealed, the strong manly singing, the silence
that ensued, the sight of cowled heads bowed in
prayer, and then the clear trenchant beating of the
bell, breaking in to show that the last office was
over and the hour of sleep had come; and when
I remember, I am not surprised that I made my
escape into the court with somewhat whirling fan-
cies, and stood like a man bewildered in the windy
starry night.
But I was weary; and when I had quieted my
spirits with Elizabeth Seton's memoirs a dull
work the cold and the raving of the wind
among the pines for my room was on that side
of the monastery which adjoins the woods dis-
posed me readily to slumber. I was wakened at
black midnight, as it seemed, though it was really
two in the morning, by the first stroke upon the
$o TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
bell. All the brothers were then hurrying to the
chapel; the dead in life, at this untimely hour,
were already beginning the uncomforted labours
of their day. The dead in life there was a chill
reflection. And the words of a French song came
back into my memory, telling of the best of our
mixed existence:
"Que fas de belles filles,
Girofll !
Giroflal
Que t'as de belles filles,
V Amour Its compUra f"
And I blessed God that I was free to wander, free
to hope, and free to love.
THE BOARDERS
BUT there was another side to my residence
at our Lady of the Snows. At this late
season there were not many boarders; and
yet I was not alone in the public part of the mon-
astery. This itself is hard by the gate, with a
small dining-room on the ground floor, and a
whole corridor of cells similar to mine up-stairs.
I have stupidly forgotten the board for a regular
retraitant; but it was somewhere between three
and five francs a day, and I think most probably
the first. Chance visitors like myself might give
what they chose as a free-will offering, but nothing
was demanded. I may mention that when I was
going away, Father Michael refused twenty francs
as excessive. I explained the reasoning which led
me to offer him so much; but even then, from a
curious point of honour, he would not accept it
with his own hand. " I have no right to refuse
92 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
for the monastery/' he explained, "but I should
prefer if you would give it to one of the brothers."
I had dined alone, because I arrived late; but
at supper I found two other guests. One was a
country parish priest, who had walked over that
morning from the seat of his cure near Mende to
enjoy four days of solitude and prayer. He was
a grenadier in person, with the hale colour and cir-
cular wrinkles of a peasant ; and as he complained
much of how he had been impeded by his skirts
upon the march, I have a vivid fancy portrait of
him, striding along, upright, big-boned, with kilted
cassock, through the bleak hills of Gevaudan. The
other was a short, grizzling, thick-set man, from
forty-five to fifty, dressed in tweed with a knitted
spencer, and the red ribbon of a decoration in his
buttonhole. This last was a hard person to classify.
He was an old soldier, who had seen service and
risen to the rank of commandant; and he retained
some of the brisk decisive manners of the camp.
On the other hand, as soon as his resignation was
accepted, he had come to our Lady of the Snows
as a boarder, and after a brief experience of its
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 93
ways, had decided to remain as a novice. Already
the new life was beginning to modify his appear-
ance; already he had acquired somewhat of the
quiet and smiling air of the brethren ; and he was
as yet neither an officer nor a Trappist, but partook
of the character of each. And certainly here* was
a man in an interesting nick of life. Out of the
noise of cannon and trumpets, he was in the act
of passing into this still country bordering on the
grave, where men sleep nightly in their grave-
clothes, and, like phantoms, communicate by
signs.
At supper we talked politics. I make it my
business, when I am in France, to preach polit-
ical good-will and moderation, and to dwell on
the example of Poland, much as some alarmists
in England dwell on the example of Carthage.
The priest and the Commandant assured me of
their sympathy with all I said, and made a heavy
sighing over the bitterness of contemporary feeling,
" Why, you cannot say anything to a man with
which he does not absolutely agree," said I, " but
he flies up at you in a temper,"
94 TRAVELS W<ITH A DONKEY
They both declared that such a state of things
was antichristian.
While we were thus agreeing, what should my
tongue stumble upon but a word in praise of
Gambetta's moderation. The old soldier's coun-
tenance was instantly suffused with blood; with
the palms of his hands he beat the table like a
naughty child.
" Comment, monsieur ? " he shouted. " Com*
went? Gambetta moderate? jWill you dare to
justify these words?"
But the priest had not forgotten the tenor of
our talk. And suddenly, in the height of his
fury, the old soldier found a warning look di-
rected on his face; the absurdity of his behaviour
was brought home to him in a flash; and the
storm came to an abrupt end, without another
word.
It was only in the morning, over our coffee
(Friday, September 27th), that this couple found
out I was a heretic. I suppose I had misled
them by some admiring expressions as to the
monastic life around us; and it was only by a
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 95
point-blank question that the truth came out. I
had been tolerantly used, both by simple Father
Apollinaris and astute Father Michael; and the
good Irish deacon, when he heard of my reli-
gious weakness, had only patted me upon the
shoulder and said, " You must be a Catholic and
come to heaven. 11 But I was now among a dif-
ferent sect of orthodox. These two men were
bitter and upright and narrow, like the worst of
Scotsmen, and indeed, upon my heart, I fancy
they were worse. The priest snorted aloud like
a battle-horse.
" Et vous pretendez mourir dans ceile espece
de croyancef" he demanded; and there is no
type used by mortal printers large enough to
qualify his accent
I humbly indicated that I had no design of
changing.
But he could not away with such a monstrous
attitude. " No, no/' he cried; " you must change.
You have come here, God has led you here, and
you must embrace the opportunity."
I made a slip in policy; I appealed to the family
9 6 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
affections, though I was speaking to a priest and
a soldier, two classes of men circumstantially di-
vorced from the kind and homely ties of life.
"Your father and mother?" cried the priest.
" Very well ; you will convert them in their turn
when you go home/*
I think I see my father's face! I would rather
tackle the Gsetulian lion in his den than embark on
such an enterprise against the family theologian.
But now the hunt was up; priest and soldier
were in full cry for my conversion; and the
Work of the Propagation of the Faith, for which
the people of Cheylard subscribed forty-eight francs
ten centimes during 1877, was being gallantly pur-
sued against myself. It was an odd but most
effective proselytising. They never sought to
convince me in argument, where I might have
attempted some defence; but took it for granted
that I was both ashamed and terrified at my
position, and urged me solely on the point of
time. Now, they said, when God had led me
to our Lady of the Snows, now was the appointed
hour.
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 97
" Do not be withheld by false shame," observed
the priest, for my encouragement.
For one who feels very similarly to all sects
of religion, and who has never been able, even
for a moment, to weigh seriously the merit of
this or that creed on the eternal side of things,
however much he may see to praise or blame
upon the secular and temporal side, the situation
thus created was both unfair and painful. I com-
mitted my second fault in tact, and tried to plead
that it was all the same thing in the end, and we
were all drawing near by different sides to the
same kind and utidiscriminating Friend and Father.
That, as it seems to lay-spirits, would be the only
gospel worthy of the name. But different men
think differently; and this revolutionary aspira-
tion brought down the priest with all the terrors
of the law. He launched into harrowing details of
hell. The damned, he said on the authority
of a little book which he had read not a week
before, and which, to add conviction to convic-
tion, he had fully intended to bring along with
him in his pocket were to occupy the same at-
98 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
titude through all eternity in the midst of dismal
tortures. And as he thus expatiated, he grew in
nobility of aspect with his enthusiasm.
As a result the pair concluded that I should
seek out the Prior, since the Abbot was from
home, and lay my case immediately before him.
" C'est mon conseil comme ancien militaire"
observed the Commandant; " et celui de monsieur
comme pretre"
" Oui" added the cure, sententiously nodding ;
" comme ancien militaire et comme pretre"
At this moment, whilst I was somewhat em-
barrassed how to answer, in came one of the
monks, a little brown fellow, as lively as a grig,
and with an Italian accent, who threw himself at
once into the contention, but in a milder and
more persuasive vein, as befitted one of these
pleasant brethren. Look at him, he said. The
rule was very hard; he would have dearly liked
to stay in his own country, Italy it was well
known how beautiful it was, the beautiful Italy;
but then there were no Trappists in Italy; and
he had a soul to save; and here he was.
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 99
I am afraid I must be at bottom, what a cheer-
ful Indian critic has dubbed me, "a faddling
hedonist"; for this description of the brother's
motives gave me somewhat of, a shock. I should
have preferred to think he had chosen the life
for its own sake, and not for ulterior purposes;
and this shows how profoundly I was out of
sympathy with these good Trappists, even when
I was doing my best to sympathise. But to the
cure the argument seemed decisive.
" Hear that ! " he cried. " And I have seen a
marquis here, a marquis, a marquis " he re-
peated the holy word three times over "and
other persons high in society; and generals. And
here, at your side, is this gentleman, who has
been so many years in armies decorated, an
old warrior. And here he is, ready to dedicate
himself to God."
I was by this time so thoroughly embarrassed
that I pleaded cold feet, and made my escape
from the apartment. It was a furious windy
morning, with a sky much cleared, and long and
potent intervals of sunshine; and I wandered until
ioo TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
dinner in the wild country towards the east, sorely
staggered and beaten upon by the gale, but re-
warded with some striking views.
At dinner the Work of the Propagation of the
Faith was recommenced, and on this occasion still
more distastefully to me. The priest asked me
many questions as to the contemptible faith of my
fathers, and received my replies with a kind of
ecclesiastical titter.
"Your sect," he said once; "for I think you
will admit it would be doing it too much honour
to call it a religion/'
" As you please, monsieur/' said I. " La parole
est & voits"
At length I grew annoyed beyond endurance;
and although he was on his own ground, and,
what is more to the purpose, an old man, and so
holding a claim upon my toleration, I could not
avoid a protest against this uncivil usage. He was
sadly discountenanced.
" I assure you," he said, " I have no inclination
to laugh in my heart. I have no other feeling but
interest in your soul/'
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 101
And there ended my conversion. Honest man!
He was no dangerous deceiver; but a country
parson, full of zeal and faith. Long may he
tread Gevaudan with his kilted skirts a man
strong* to walk and strong to comfort his parish-
ioners in death ! I dare say he would beat bravely
through a snow-storm where his duty called him;
and it is not always the most faithful believer
who makes the cunningest apostle.
UPPER GEVAUDAN
(continued )
* 2H5* Bfdtuas vnadtei tfie roo
J3y fntnct-uttl eve t&e stars isjeve it
octets sweety t&e ittate-r- rat*.
neet vucts tJtfr'efar maifZ or
jf&f G-trd^s
Old
UPPER GEVAUDAN
(continued)
ACROSS THE GOULET
THE wind fell during dinner, and the sky
remained clear; so it was under better
auspices that I loaded Modestine before
the monastery-gate. My Irish friend accompanied
me so far on the way. As we came through the
wood, there was Pere Apollinaire hauling his bar-
row; and he too quitted his labours to go with
me for perhaps a hundred yards, holding my hand
between both of his in front of him. I parted
first from one and then from the other with un-
feigned regret, but yet with the glee of the trav-
eller who shakes off the dust of one stage before
hurrying forth upon another. Then Modestine
and I mounted the course of the Allier, which
here led us back into Gevaudan towards its sources
in the forest of Mercoire. It was but an incon-
106 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
siderable burn before we left its guidance. Thence,
over a hill, our way lay through a naked plateau,
until we reached Chasserades at sundown.
The company in the inn-kitchen that night were
all men employed in survey for one of the pro-
jected railways. They were intelligent and con-
versable, and we decided the future of France
over hot wine, until the state of the clock fright-
ened us to rest. There were four beds in the
little up-stairs room; and we slept six. But I
had a bed to myself, and persuaded them to leave
the window open.
"He, bourgeois; il est cinq heures!" was the
cry that wakened me in the morning (Saturday,
September 28th). The room was full of a trans-
parent darkness, which dimly showed me the other
three beds and the five different nightcaps on the
pillows. But out of the window the dawn was
growing ruddy in a long belt over the hill-tops,
and day was about to flood the plateau. The hour
was inspiriting; and there seemed a promise of
calm weather, which was perfectly fulfilled. I was
soon under way with Modestine. The road lay
UPPER GfiVAUDAN 107
for awhile over the plateau, and then descended
through a precipitous village into the valley of
the Chassezac. This stream ran among green
meadows, well hidden from the world by its steep
banks; the broom was in flower, and here and
there was a hamlet sending up its smoke.
At last the path crossed the Chassezac upon a
bridge, and, forsaking this deep hollow, set itself
to cross the mountain of La Goulet. It wound
up through Lestampes by upland fields and woods
of beech and birch, and with every corner brought
me into an acquaintance with some new interest.
Even in the gully of the Chassezac my ear had
been struck by a noise like that of a great bass
bell ringing at the distance of many miles; but
this, as I continued to mount and draw nearer to
it, seemed to change in character, and I found
at length that it came from some one leading
flocks afield to the note of a rural horn. The
narrow street of Lestampes stood full of sheep,
from wall to, wall black sheep and white, bleat-
ing like the birds in spring, and each one accom-
panying himself upon the sheep-bell round his
io8 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
neck. It made a pathetic concert, all in treble.
A little higher, and I passed a pair of men in a
tree with pruning-hooks, and one of them was
singing the music of a bourree. Still further, and
when I was already threading the birches, the
crowing of cocks came cheerfully up to my ears,
and along with that the voice of a flute discours-
ing a deliberate and plaintive air from one of
the upland villages. I pictured to myself some
grizzled, apple-cheeked, country schoolmaster flut-
ing in his bit of a garden in the clear autumn sun-
shine. All these beautiful and interesting sounds
filled my heart with an unwonted expectation;
and it appeared to me that, once past this range
which I was mounting, I should descend into the
garden of the world. Nor was I deceived, for I
was now done with rains and winds and a bleak
country. The first part of my journey ended here;
and this was like an induction of sweet sounds
into the other and more beautiful.
There are other degrees of feyness, as of punish-
ment, besides the capital; and I was now led by
my good spirits into an adventure which I relate
UPPER GEVAUDAN 109
in the interest of future donkey-drivers. The road
zigzagged so widely on the hillside that I chose
a short cut by map and compass, and struck
through the dwarf woods to catch the road again
upon a higher level. It was my one serious con-
flict with Modestine. She would none of my short
cut ; she turned in my face, she backed, she reared ;
she, whom I had hitherto imagined to be dumb,
actually brayed with a loud hoarse flourish, like a
cock crowing for the dawn* I plied the goad with
one hand ; with the other, so steep was the ascent,
I had to hold on the pack-saddle. Half-a-dozen
times she was nearly over backwards on the top
of me; half-a-dozen times, from sheer weariness
of spirit, I was nearly giving it up, and leading
her down again to follow the road. But I took
the thing as a wager, and fought it through. I
was surprised, as I went on my way again, by what
appeared to be chill rain-drops falling on my hand,
and more than once looked up in wonder at the
cloudless sky. But it was only sweat which came
dropping from my brow.
Over the summit of the Goulet there was no
no TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
marked road only upright stones posted from
space to space to guide the drovers. The turf
underfoot was springy and well scented. I had no
company but a lark or two, and met but one
bullock-cart between Lestampes and Bleymard. In
front of me I saw a shallow valley, and beyond
that the range of the Lozere, sparsely wooded and
well enough modelled in the flanks, but straight
and dull in outline. There was scarce a sign of
culture; only about Bleymard, the white high-
road from Villefort to Mende traversed a range
of meadows, set with spiry poplars, and sounding
from side to side with the bells of flocks and
herds.
A NIGHT AMONG THE PINES
FROM Bleymard after dinner, although it
was already late, I set out to scale a por-
tion of the Lozere. An ill-marked stony
drove-road guided me forward; and I met nearly
half-a-dozen bullock-carts descending from the
woods, each laden, with a whole pine-tree for the
winter's firing. At the top of the woods, which
do not climb very high upon this cold ridge, I
struck leftward by a path among the pines, until
I hit on a dell of green turf, where a streamlet
made a little spout over some stones to serve me
for a water-tap. " In a more sacred or sequestered
bower nor nymph nor faunus haunted." The
trees were not old, but they grew thickly round
the glade: there was no outlook, except north-
eastward upon distant hill-tops, or straight upward
to the sky; and the encampment felt secure and
private like a room. By the time I had made my
TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
arrangements and fed Modestine, the day was
already beginning to decline. I buckled myself
to the knees into my sack and made a hearty meal ;
and as soon as the sun went down, I pulled my
cap over my eyes and fell asleep.
Night is a dead monotonous period under a roof;
but in the open world it passes lightly, with its
stars and dews and perfumes, and the hours are
marked by changes in the face of Nature. What
seems a kind of temporal death to people choked
between walls and curtains, is only a light and
living slumber to the man who sleeps afield. All
night long he can hear Nature breathing deeply
and freely; even as she takes her rest she turns and
smiles; and there is one stirring hour unknown
to those who dwell in houses, when a wakeful
influence goes abroad over the sleeping hemi-
sphere, and all the outdoor world are on their feet.
It is then that the cock first crows, not this time
to announce the dawn, but like a cheerful watch-
man speeding the course of night Cattle awake
on the meadows; sheep break their fast on dewy
hillsides, and change to a new lair among the
UPPER GEVAUDAN 113
ferns; and houseless men, who have lain down
with the fowls, open their dim eyes and behold
the beauty of the night
At what inaudible summons, at what gentle
touch of Nature, are all these sleepers thus recalled
in the same hour to life? Do the stars rain down
an influence, or do we share some thrill of mother
earth below our resting bodies? Even shepherds
and old countryfolk, who are the deepest read in
these arcana, have not a guess as to. the means or
purpose of this nightly resurrection. Towards
two in the morning they declare the thing takes
place ; and neither know nor inquire further. And
at least it is a pleasant incident. We are disturbed
in our slumber only, like the luxurious Montaigne,
" that we may the better and more sensibly relish
it." We have a moment to look upon the stars,
and there is a special pleasure for some minds in
the reflection that we share the impulse with all
outdoor creatures in our neighbourhood, that we
have escaped out of the Bastille of civilisation, and
are become, for the time being, a mere kindly
animal and a sheep of Nature's flock.
ii 4 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
When that hour came to me among the pines,
I wakened thirsty. My tin was standing by me
half full of water. I emptied it at a draught; and
feeling broad awake after this internal cold asper-
sion, sat upright to make a cigarette. The stars
were clear, coloured, and jewel-like, but not frosty.
A faint silvery vapour stood for the Milky Way.
All around me the black fir-points stood upright
and stock-still. By the whiteness of the pack-
saddle, I could see Modestine walking round and
round at the length of her tether ; I could hear her
steadily munching at the sward ; but there was not
another sound, save the indescribable quiet talk
of the runnel over the stones. I lay lazily smoking
and studying the colour of the sky, as we call the
void of space, from where it showed a reddish grey
behind the pines to where it showed a glossy blue-
black between the stars. As if to be more like a
pedlar, I wear a silver ring. This I could see
faintly shining as I raised or lowered the cigarette;
and at each whiff the inside of my hand was illu-
minated, and became for a second the highest light
in the landscape.
UPPER GEVAUDAN 115
A faint wind, more like a moving coolness than
a stream of air, passed down the glade from time
to time ; so that even in my great chamber the air
was being renewed all night long. I thought with
horror of the inn at Chasserades and the con-
gregated nightcaps; with horror of the nocturnal
prowesses of clerks and students, of hot theatres
and pass-keys and close rooms, I have not often
enjoyed a more serene possession of myself, nor
felt more independent of material aids. The outer
world, from which we cower into our houses,
seemed after all a gentle habitable place; and
night after night a man's bed, it seemed, was laid
and waiting for him in the fields, where God keeps
an open house. I thought I had re-discovered one
of those truths which are revealed to savages and
hid from political economists : at the least, I had
discovered a new pleasure for myself. And yet
even while I was exulting in my solitude I became
aware of a strange lack. I wished a companion
to lie near me in the starlight, silent and not mov-
ing, but ever within touch. For there is a fellow-
ship more quiet even than solitude, and which,
TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
rightly understood, is solitude made perfect. And
to live out of doors with the woman a man loves
is of all lives the most complete and free.
As I thus lay, between content and longing, a
faint noise stole towards me through the pines.
I thought, at first, it was the crowing of cocks
or the barking of dogs at some very distant farm ;
but steadily and gradually it took articulate shape
in my ears, until I became aware that a passenger
was going by upon the highroad in the valley, and
singing loudly as he went. There was more of
good-will than grace in his performance; but he
trolled with ample lungs; and the sound of his
voice took hold upon the hillside and set the air
shaking in the leafy glens. I have heard people
passing by night in sleeping cities ; some of them
sang; one, I remember, played loudly on the bag-
pipes. I have heard the rattle of a cart or carriage
spring up suddenly after hours of stillness, and
pass, for some minutes, within the range of my
hearing as I lay abed. There is a romance about
all who are abroad in the black hours, and with
something of a thrill we try to guess their business.
UPPER GEVAUDAN 117
But here the romance was double : first, this glad
passenger, lit internally with wine, who sent up his
voice in music through the night; and then I, on
the other hand, buckled into my sack, and smoking
alone in the pine-woods between four and five
thousand feet towards the stars.
When I awoke again (Sunday, 29th Septem-
ber), many of the stars had disappeared; only the
stronger companions of the night still burned vis-
ibly overhead ; and away towards the east I saw
a faint haze of light upon the horizon, such as had
been the Milky Way when I was last awake. Day
was at hand. I lit my lantern, and by its glow-
worm light put on my boots and gaiters; then I
broke up some bread for Modestine, filled my can
at the water-tap, and lit my spirit-lamp to boil
myself some chocolate. The blue darkness lay
long in the glade where I had so sweetly slum-
bered ; but soon there was a broad streak of orange
melting into gold along the mountain-tops of
Vivarais. A solemn glee possessed my mind at
this gradual and lovely coming in of day. I heard
the runnel with delight; I looked round me for
n8 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
something beautiful and unexpected; but the
black pine-trees, the hollow glade, the munching
ass, remained unchanged in figure. Nothing had
altered but the light, and that, indeed, shed over
all a spirit of life and of breathing peace, and
moved me to a strange exhilaration.
I drank my water chocolate, which was hot if it
was not rich, and strolled here and there, and up
and down about the glade. While I was thus
delaying, a gush of steady wind, as long as a heavy
sigh, poured direct out of the quarter of the morn-
ing. It was cold, and set me sneezing. The trees
near at hand tossed their black plumes in its pas-
sage; and I could see the thin distant spires of
pine along the edge of the hill rock slightly to
and fro against the golden east. Ten minutes
after, the sunlight spread at a gallop along the
hillside, scattering shadows and sparkles, and the
day had come completely.
I hastened to prepare my pack, and tackle the
steep ascent that lay before me; but I had some-
thing on my mind. It was only a fancy; yet a
fancy will sometimes be importunate. I had been
UPPER GEVAUDAN 119
most hospitably received and punctually served in
my green caravanserai. The room was airy, the
water excellent, and the dawn had called me to
a moment. I say nothing of the tapestries or the
inimitable ceiling, nor yet of the view which I com-
manded from the windows; but I felt I was in
some one's debt for all this liberal entertainment.
And so it pleased me, in a half-laughing way, to
leave pieces of money on the turf as I went along,
until I had left enough for my night's lodging. I
trust they did not fall to some rich and churlish
drover.
THE COUNTRY OF THE
CAMISARDS
* We travelled in the print of olden, wars /
yet all the land was green, ;
And lave ivef&und? and peace ^
"Wherefore and luar utd&een.
They pass and smile ^ the children, of the svoord*
No more the sword they tuield ;
And O, how deep the corn
Alans the battle-iieldl "
W. P. BANNATYKS.
THE COUNTRY OF THE
CAMISARDS
ACROSS THE LOZfeRE
THE track that I had followed in the even-
ing soon died out, and I continued to
follow over a bald turf ascent a row of
stone pillars, such as had conducted me across the
GouleL It was already warm. I tied my jacket
on the pack, and walked in my knitted waistcoat.
Modestine herself was in high spirits, and broke
of her own accord, for the first time in my ex-
perience, into a jolting trot that sent the oats
swashing in the pocket of my coat. The view,
back upon the northern Gevaudan, extended with
every step ; scarce a tree, scarce a house, appeared
upon the fields of wild hill that ran north, east,
and west, all blue and gold in the haze and sun-
light of the morning. A multitude of little birds
kept sweeping and twittering about my path; they
i2 4 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
perched on the stone pillars, they pecked and
strutted on the turf, and I saw them circle in
volleys in the blue air, and show, from time to
time, translucent flickering wings between the sun
and me.
Almost from the first moment of my march, a
faint large noise, like a distant surf, had filled my
ears. Sometimes I was tempted to think it the
voice of a neighbouring waterfall, and sometimes
a subjective result of the utter stillness of the hill.
But as I continued to advance, the noise increased
and became like the hissing of an enormous tea-
urn, and at the same time breaths of cool air
began to reach me from the direction of the sum-
mit. At length I understood. It was blowing
stiffly from the south upon the other slope of the
Lozere, and every step that I took I was drawing
nearer to the wind.
Although it had been long desired, it was quite
unexpectedly at last that my eyes rose above the
summit. A step that seemed no way more deci-
sive than many other steps that had preceded it
and, " like stout Cortez when, with eagle eyes,
THE CAMISARDS 125
he stared on the Pacific/' I took possession, in
my own name, of a new quarter of the world.
For behold, instead of the gross turf rampart I
had been mounting for so long, a view into the
hazy air of heaven, and a land of intricate blue
hills below my feet.
The Lozere lies nearly east and west, cutting
Gevaudan into two unequal parts ; its highest point,
this Pic de Finiels, on which I was then standing,
rises upwards of five thousand six hundred feet
above the sea, and in clear weather commands a
view over all lower Languedoc to the Mediter-
ranean Sea. I have spoken with people who either
pretended or believed that they had seen, from the
Pic de Finiels, white ships sailing by Montpellier
and Cette. Behind was the upland northern coun-
try through which my way had lain, peopled by
a dull race, without wood, without much grandeur
of hill-form, and famous in the past for little be-
side wolves. But in front of me, half veiled in
sunny haze, lay a new Gevaudan, rich, picturesque,
illustrious for stirring events. Speaking largely,
I was in the Cevennes at Monastier, and during
126 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
all my journey; but there is a strict and local
sense in which only this confused and shaggy coun-
try at my feet has any title to the name, and in
this sense the peasantry employ the word. These
are the Cevennes with an emphasis : the Cevennes
of the Cevennes. In that undecipherable labyrinth
of hills, a war of bandits, a war of wild beasts,
raged for two years between the Grand Monarch
with all his troops and marshals on the one hand,
and a few thousand Protestant mountaineers upon
the other. A hundred and eighty years ago, the
Camisards held a station even on the Lozere,
where I stood; they had an organisation, arsenals,
a military and religious hierarchy; their affairs
were " the discourse of every coffee-house " in
London; England sent fleets in their support;
their leaders prophesied and murdered; with
colours and drums, and the singing of old French
psalms, their bands sometimes affronted daylight,
marched before walled cities, and dispersed the
generals of the king; and sometimes at night, or
in masquerade, possessed themselves of strong
castles, and avenged treachery upon their allies
THE CAMISARDS 127
and cruelty upon their foes. There, a hundred
and eighty years ago, was the chivalrous Roland,
" Count and Lord Roland, generalissimo of the
Protestants in France/' grave, silent, imperious,
pock-marked ex-dragoon, whom a lady followed
in his wanderings out of love. There was Cava-
lier, a baker's apprentice with a genius for war,
elected brigadier of Camisards at seventeen, to
die at fifty-five the English governor of Jersey.
There again was Castanet, a partisan leader in a
voluminous peruke and with a taste for contro-
versial divinity. Strange generals, who moved
apart to take counsel with the God of Hosts, and
fled or offered battle, set sentinels or slept in an
unguarded camp, as the Spirit whispered to their
hearts! And there, to follow these and other
leaders, was the rank and file of prophets and dis-
ciples, bold, patient, indefatigable, hardy to run
upon the mountains, cheering their rough life with
psalms, eager to fight, eager to pray, listening
devoutly to the oracles of brain-sick children, and
mystically putting a grain of wheat among the pew-
ter balls with which they charged their muskets.
128 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
I had travelled hitherto through a dull district,
and in the track of nothing more notable than the
child-eating Beast of Gevaudan, the Napoleon
Buonaparte of wolves. But now I was to go
down into the scene of a romantic chapter or,
better, a romantic foot-note in the history of
the world. What was left of all this by-gone dust
and heroism? I was told that Protestantism still
survived in this head seat of Protestant resistance ;
so much the priest himself had told me in the
monastery parlour. But I had yet to learn if it
were a bare survival, or a lively and generous
tradition. Again, if in the northern Cevennes the
people are narrow in religious judgments, and
more filled with zeal than charity, what was I to
look for in this land of persecution and reprisal
in a land where the tyranny of the Church
produced the Camisard rebellion, and the terroi
of the Camisards threw the Catholic peasantry
into legalised revolt upon the other side, so that
Camisard and Florentin skulked for each other's
Jives among the mountains?
Just on the brow of the hill, where I paused to
THE CAMISARDS 129
look before me, the series of stone pillars came
abruptly to an end; and only a little below, a
sort of track appeared and began to go down a
breakneck slope, turning like a corkscrew as it
went. It led into a valley between falling hills,
stubbly with rocks like a reaped field of corn, and
floored further down with green meadows. I fol-
lowed the track with precipitation; the steepness
/
of the slope, the continual agile turning of the
line of descent, and the old unwearied hope of
finding something new in a new country, all con-
spired to lend me wings. Yet a little lower and
a stream began, collecting itself together out of
many fountains, and soon making a glad noise
among the hills. Sometimes it would cross the
track in a bit of waterfall, with a pool, in which
Modestine refreshed her feet.
The whole descent is like a dream to me, so
rapidly was it accomplished. I had scarcely left
the summit ere the valley had closed round my
path, and the sun beat upon me, walking in a
stagnant lowland atmosphere. The track became
a road, and went up and down in easy undula*
130 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
tions. I passed cabin after cabin, but all seemed
deserted; and I saw not a human creature, nor
heard any sound except that of the stream. I
was, however, in a different country from the
day before. The stony skeleton of the world was
here vigorously displayed to sun and air. The
slopes were steep and changeful. Oak-trees clung
along the hills, well grown, wealthy in leaf, and
touched by the autumn with strong and luminous
colours. Here and there another stream would
fall in from the right or the left, down a gorge
of snow-white and tumultuary boulders. The
river in the bottom (for it was rapidly growing
a river, collecting on all hands as it trotted on
its way) here foamed awhile in desperate rapids,
and there lay in pools of the most enchanting
sea-green shot with watery browns. As far a?
I have gone, I have never seen , river of so
changeful and delicate a hue; crystal was ncf
more clear, the meadows were not by half so
green; and at every pool I saw I felt a thrill of
longing to be out of these hot, dusty, and mate-
rial garments, and bathe my naked body in the
THE CAMISARDS 131
mountain air and water. All the time as I went
on I never forgot it was the Sabbath; the still-
ness was a perpetual reminder; and I heard in
spirit the church-bells clamouring all over Europe,
and the psalms of a thousand churches.
At length a human sound struck upon my ear
a cry strangely modulated between pathos and
derision; and looking across the valley, I saw a
little urchin sitting in a meadow, with his hands
about his knees, and dwarfed to almost comical
smallness by the distance. But the rogue had
picked me out as I went down the road, from
oak-wood on to oak-wood, driving Modestine;
and he made me the compliments of the new
country in this tremulous high-pitched salutation.
And as all noises are lovely and natural at a suf-
ficient distance, this also, coming through so much
clean hill air and crossing all the green valley,
sounded pleasant to my ear, and seemed a thing
rustic, like the oaks or the river.
A little after, the stream that I was following
fell into the Tarn, at Pont de Montvert of bloody
memory.
PONT DE MONTVERT
ONE of the first things I encountered in
Pont de Montvert was, if I remember
rightly, the Protestant temple; but this
was but the type of other novelties. A subtle
atmosphere distinguishes a town in England from
a town in France, or even in Scotland. At Car-
lisle you can see you are in one country; at Dum-
fries, thirty miles away, you are as sure that you
are in the other. I should find it difficult to tell
in what particulars Pont de Montvert differed from
Monastier or Langogne, or even Bleymard; but
the difference existed, and spoke eloquently to the
eyes. The place, with Its houses, its lanes, its
glaring river-bed, wore an indescribable air of
the South.
All was Sunday bustle in the streets and in the
public-house, as all had been Sabbath peace among
the mountains. There must have been near a
score of us at dinner by eleven before noon; and
THE CAMISARDS 133
after I had eaten and drunken, and sat writing
up my journal, I suppose as many more came
dropping in one after another, or by twos and
threes. In crossing the Lozere I had not only
come among new natural features, but moved into
the territory of a different race. These people,
as they hurriedly despatched their viands in an
intricate sword-play of knives, questioned and
answered me with a degree of intelligence which
excelled all that I had met, except among the
railway folk at Chasserades. They had open tell-
ing faces, and were lively both in speech and
manner. They not only entered thoroughly into
the spirit of my little trip, but more than one
declared, if he were rich enough, he would like
to set forth on such another.
Even physically there was a pleasant change.
I had not seen a pretty woman since I left Monas-
tier, and there but one. Now of the three who
sat down with me to dinner, one was certainly not
beautiful a poor timid thing of forty, quite
troubled at this roaring table d'hote, whom I
squired and helped to wine, and pledged and tried
TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
generally to encourage, with quite a contrary ef-
fect; but the other two, both married, were both
more handsome than the average of women. And
Clarisse? What shall I say of Clarisse? She
waited the table with a heavy placable noncha-
lance, like a performing cow ; her great grey eyes
were steeped in amorous languor; her features,
although fleshy, were of an original and accurate
design; her mouth had a curl; her nostril spoke
of dainty pride; her cheek fell into strange and
interesting lines. It was a face capable of strong
emotion, and, with training, it offered the prom-
ise of delicate sentiment. It seemed pitiful to see
so good a model left to country admirers and a
country way of thought. Beauty should at least
have touched society, then, in a moment, it throws
off a weight that lay upon it, it becomes conscious
of itself, it puts on an elegance, learns a gait and
a carriage of the head, and, in a moment, patet
dea. Before I left I assured Clarisse of my hearty
admiration. She took it like milk, without em-
barrassment or wonder, merely looking at me
steadily with her great eyes; and I own the re-
THE CAM1SARDS 135
suit upon myself was some confusion. If Clarisse
could read English, I should not dare to add that
her figure was unworthy of her face. Hers was
a case for stays; but that may perhaps grow
better as she gets up in years.
Pont de Montvert, or Greenhill Bridge, as we
might say at home, is a place memorable in the
story of the Camisards. It was here that the war
broke out; here that those southern Covenanters
slew their Archbishop Sharpe. The persecution
on the one hand, the febrile enthusiasm on the
other, are almost equally difficult to understand
in these quiet modern days, and with our easy
modern beliefs and disbeliefs. The Protestants
were one and all beside their right minds with zeal
and sorrow. They were all prophets and prophet-
esses. Children at the breast would exhort their
parents to good works. "A child of fifteen
months at Quissac spoke from its mother's arms,
agitated and sobbing, distinctly and with a loud
voice/ 5 Marshal Villars has seen a town where
all the women "seemed possessed by the devil/'
and had trembling fits, and uttered prophecies pub-
136 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
licly upon the streets. A prophetess of Vivarais
was hanged at Montpellier because blood flowed
from her eyes and nose, and she declared that she
was weeping tears of blood for the misfortunes
of the Protestants. And it was not only women
and children. Stalwart dangerous fellows, used to
swing the sickle or to wield the forest axe, were
likewise shaken with strange paroxysms, and
spoke oracles with sobs and streaming tears. A
persecution unsurpassed in violence had lasted near
a score of years, and this was the result upon the
persecuted; hanging, burning, breaking on the
wheel, had been vain; the dragoons had left their
hoof-marks over all the country-side; there were
men rowing in the galleys, and women pining in
the prisons of the Church ; and not a thought was
changed in the heart of any upright Protestant.
Now the head and forefront of the persecution
after Lamoignon de Bavile Frangois de
Langlade du Chayla (pronounced Cheila), Arch-
priest of the Cevennes and Inspector of Missions
in the same country, had a house in which he
sometimes dwelt in the town of Pont de Montvert
THE CAMISARDS 137
He was a conscientious person, who seems to have
been intended by nature for a pirate, and now
fifty-five, an age by which a man has learned all
the moderation of which he is capable. A mis-
sionary in his youth in China, he there suffered
martyrdom, was left for dead, and only succoured
and brought back to life by the charity of a pariah.
We must suppose the pariah devoid of second
sight, and not purposely malicious in this act
Such an experience, it might be thought, would
have cured a man of the desire to persecute; but
the human spirit is a thing strangely put together ;
and, having been a Christian martyr, Du Chayla
became a Christian persecutor. The Work of the
Propagation of the Faith went roundly forward in
his hands. His house in Pont de Montvert served
him as a prison. There he plucked out the hairs
of the beard, and closed the hands of his prisoners
upon live coals, to convince them that they were
deceived in their opinions. And yet had not he
himself tried and proved the inefficacy of these
carnal arguments among the Buddhists in China?
Not only was life made intolerable in Langue-
I 3 8 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
doc, but flight was rigidly forbidden. One Massip^
a muleteer, and well acquainted with the moun-
tain-paths, had already guided several troops of
fugitives in safety to Geneva; and on him, with an-
other convoy, consisting mostly of women dressed
as men, Du Chayla, in an evil hour for himself,
laid his hands. The Sunday following, there was
a conventicle of Protestants in the woods of Alte-
fage upon Mont Bouges; where there stood up
one Seguier Spirit Seguier, as his companions
called him a wool-carder, tall, black-faced, and
toothless, but a man full of prophecy. He declared,
in the name of God, that the time for submission
had gone by, and they must betake themselves to
arms for the deliverance of their brethren and the
destruction of the priests.
The next night, 24th July, 1702, a sound dis-
turbed the Inspector of Missions as he sat in his
prison-house at Pont de Montvert; the voices of
many men upraised in psalmody drew nearer and
nearer through the town. It was ten at night ; he
had his court about him, priests, soldiers, and ser-
vants, to the number of twelve or fifteen ; and now
THE CAMISARDS 139
dreading the insolence of a conventicle below his
very windows, he ordered forth his soldiers to
report* But the psalm-singers were already at his
door, fifty strong, led by the inspired Seguier, and
breathing death. To their summons, the arch-
priest made answer like a stout old persecutor, and
bade his garrison fire upon the mob. One Cam-
isard (for, according to some, it was in this night's
work that they came by the name) fell at this dis-
charge; his comrades burst in the door with
hatchets and a beam of wood, overran the lower
story of the house, set free the prisoners, and
finding one of them in the vine, a sort of Scaven-
ger's Daughter of the place and period, redoubled
in fury against Du Chayla, and sought by repeated
assaults to carry the upper floors. But he, on his
side, had given absolution to his men, and they
bravely held the staircase.
" Children of God," cried the prophet, " hold
your hands. Let us burn the house, with the priest
and the satellites of Baal/'
The fire caught readily. Out of an upper win-
dow Du Chayla and his men lowered themselves
i 4 o TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
into the garden by means of knotted sheets ; some
escaped across the river under the bullets of the
insurgents; but the archpriest himself fell, broke
his thigh, and could only crawl into the hedge.
What were his reflections as this second martyr-
dom drew near? A poor, brave, besotted, hateful
man, who had done his duty resolutely according
to his light both in the Cevennes and China. He
found at least one telling word to say in his de-
fence ; for when the roof fell in and the upbursting
flames discovered his retreat, and they came and
dragged him to the public place of the town, raging
and calling him damned "If I be damned/'
said he, " why should you also damn yourselves ? "
Here was a good reason for the last; but in the
course of his inspectorship he had given many
stronger which all told in a contrary direction;
and these he was now to hear. One by one,
Seguier first, the Camisards drew near and stabbed
him. " This," they said, " is for my father broken
on the wheel. This for my brother in the galleys.
That for my mother or my sister imprisoned in
your cursed convents." Each gave his blow and
THE CAMISARDS 141
his reason; and then all kneeled and sang psalms
around the body till the dawn. With the dawn,
still singing, they defiled away towards Frugeres,
further up the Tarn, to pursue the work of ven-
geance, leaving Du Chayla's prison-house in ruins,
and his body pierced with two-and-fifty wounds
upon the public place.
'Tis a wild night's work, with its accompani-
ment of psalms ; and it seems as if a psalm must
always have a sound of threatening in that town
upon the Tarn. But the story does not end, even
so far as concerns Pont de Montvert, with the
departure of the Camisards. The career of Seguier
was brief and bloody. Two more priests and a
whole family at Ladeveze, from the father to the
servants, fell by his hand or by his orders; and
yet he was but a day or two at large, and restrained
all the time by the presence of the soldiery. Taken
at length by a famous soldier of fortune, Captain
Poul, he appeared unmoved before his judges.
"Your name?" they asked.
" Pierre Seguier."
" Why are you called Spirit? "
i 4 a TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
" Because the Spirit of the Lord is with me/*
"Your domicile?"
" Lately in the desert, and soon in heaven."
" Have you no remorse for your crimes ? "
" I have committed none. My soul is like a
garden full of shelter and of fountains/'
At Pont de Montvert, on the I2th of August, he
had his right hand stricken from his body, and was
burned alive. And his soul was like a garden?
So perhaps was the soul of Du Chayla, the Chris-
tian martyr. And perhaps if you could read in my
soul, or I could read in yours, our own composure
might seem little less surprising.
Du Chayla' s house still stands, with a new roof,
beside one of the bridges of the town ; and if you
are curious you may see the terrace-garden into
which he dropped.
IN THE VALLEY OF THE TARN
AsTEW road leads from Pont de Montvert
to Florae by the valley of the Tarn; a
smooth sandy ledge, it runs about half-
way between the summit of the cliffs and the river
in the bottom of the valley; and I went in and out,
as I followed it, from bays of shadow into prom-
ontories of afternoon sun. This was a pass like
that of Killiecrankie ; a deep turning gully in the
hills, with the Tarn making a wonderful hoarse
uproar far below, and craggy summits standing in
the sunshine high above. A thin fringe of ash-
trees ran about the hill-tops, like ivy on a ruin;
but on the lower slopes and far up every glen the
Spanish chestnut-trees stood each four-square to
heaven under its tented foliage. Some were
planted each on its own terrace, no larger than a
bed ; some, trusting in their roots, found strength
to grow and prosper and be straight and large
144 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
upon the rapid slopes of the valley; others, where
there was a margin to the river, stood marshalled
in a line and mighty like cedars of Lebanon. Yet
even where they grew most thickly they were not
to be thought of as a wood, but as a herd of stal-
wart individuals ; and the dome of each tree stood
forth separate and large, and as it were a little
hill, from among the domes of its companions.
They gave forth a faint sweet perfume which per-
vaded the air of the afternoon; autumn had put
tints of gold and tarnish in the green ; and the sun
so shone through and kindled the broad foliage,
that each chestnut was relieved against another,
not in shadow, but in light. A humble sketcher
here laid down his pencil in despair.
I wish I could convey a notion of the growth of
these noble trees; of how they strike out boughs
like the oak, and trail sprays of drooping foliage
like the willow; of how they stand on upright
fluted columns like the pillars of a church ; or like
the olive, from the most shattered bole can put
out smooth and youthful shoots, and begin a new
life upon the ruins of the old. Thus they partake
THE CAMISARDS 145
of the nature of many different trees; and even
their prickly top-knots, seen near at hand against
the sky, have a certain palm-like air that impresses
the imagination. But their individuality, although
compounded of so many elements, is but the richer
and the more original. And to look down upon
a level filled with these knolls of foliage, or to see
a clan of old unconquerable chestnuts cluster " like
herded elephants " upon the spur of a mountain,
is to rise to higher thoughts of the powers that are
in Nature.
Between Modestine's laggard humour and the
beauty of the scene, we made little progress all that
afternoon; and at last finding the sun, although
still far from setting, was already beginning to
desert the narrow valley of the Tarn, I began to
cast about for a place to camp in. This was not
easy to find; the terraces were too narrow, and
the ground, where it was unterraced, was usually
too steep for a man to lie upon. I should have
slipped all night, and awakened towards morning
with my feet or my head in the river.
After perhaps a mile, I saw, some sixty feet
146 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
above the road, a little plateau large enough to
hold my sack, and securely parapeted by the trunk
of an aged and enormous chestnut. Thither, with
infinite trouble, I goaded and kicked the reluctant
Modestine, and there I hastened to unload her.
There was only room for myself upon the plateau,
and I had to go nearly as high again before I
found so much as standing room for the ass. It
was on a heap of rolling stones, on an artificial
terrace, certainly not five feet square in all. Here
I tied her to a chestnut, and having given her
corn and bread and made a pile of chestnut-leaves,
of which I found her greedy, I descended once
more to my own encampment.
The position was unpleasantly exposed. One
or two carts went by upon the road ; and as long
as daylight lasted I concealed myself, for all
the world like a hunted Camisard, behind my
fortification of vast chestnut trunk ; for I was pas-
sionately afraid of discovery and the visit of joc-
ular persons in the night. Moreover, I saw that I
must be early awake; for these chestnut gardens
had been the scene of industry no farther gone
THE CAMISARDS 147
than on the day before. The slope was strewn
with lopped branches, and here and there a great
package of leaves was propped against a trunk;
for even the leaves are serviceable, and the peas-
ants use them in winter by way of fodder for
their animals. I picked a meal in fear and trem-
bling, half lying down to hide myself from the
road; and I dare say I was as much concerned
as if I had been a scout from Joani's band above
upon the Lozere or from Salomon's across the
Tarn in the old times of psalm-singing and blood.
Or, indeed, perhaps more ; for the Camisards had
a remarkable confidence in God ; and a tale comes
back into my memory of how the Count of Gevau-
dan, riding with a party of dragoons and a notary
at his saddlebow to enforce the oath of fidelity in
all the country hamlets, entered a valley in the
woods, and found Cavalier and his men at din-
ner, gaily seated on the grass, and their hats
crowned with box-tree garlands, while fifteen
women washed their linen in the stream. Such
was a field festival in 1703; at that date Antony
Watteau would be painting similar subjects.
i 4 8 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
This was a very different camp from that of the
night before in the cool and silent pine-woods.
It was warm and even stifling in the valley. The
shrill song of frogs, like the tremolo note of a
whistle with a pea in it, rang up from the river-
side before the sun was down. In the growing
dusk, faint rustlings began to run to and fro
among the fallen leaves; from time to time a
faint chirping or cheeping noise would fall upon
my ear; and from time to time I thought I could
see the movement of something swift and indis-
tinct between the chestnuts. A profusion of large
ants swarmed upon the ground; bats whisked by,
and mosquitoes droned overhead. The long boughs
with their bunches of leaves hung against the sky
like garlands; and those immediately above and
around me had somewhat the air of a trellis which
should have been wrecked and half overthrown in
a gale of wind.
Sleep for a long time fled my eyelids ; and just
as I was beginning to feel quiet stealing over my
limbs, and settling densely on my mind, a noise
at my head startled me broad awake again, and,
THE CAMISARDS 149
I will frankly confess it, brought my heart into
my mouth. It was such a noise as a person would
make scratching loudly with a finger-nail, it came
from under the knapsack which served me for a
pillow, and it was thrice repeated before I had
time to sit up and turn about. Nothing was to
be seen, nothing more was to be heard, but a
few of these mysterious rustlings far and near,
and the ceaseless accompaniment of the river and
the frogs. I learned next day that the chestnut
gardens are infested by rats; rustling, chirping,
and scraping were probably all due to these; but
the puzzle, for the moment, was insoluble, and I
had to compose myself for sleep, as best I could,
in wondering uncertainty about my neighbours.
I was wakened in the grey of the morning
(Monday, 3Oth September) by the sound of foot-
steps not far off upon the stones, and opening
my eyes, I beheld a peasant going by among the
chestnuts by a foot-path that I had not hitherto
observed. He turned his head neither to the right
nor to the left, and disappeared in a few strides
among the foliage. Here was an escape! But it
i 5 o TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
was plainly more than time to be moving. The
peasantry were abroad; scarce less terrible to me
in my nondescript position than the soldiers of
Captain Poul to an undaunted Camisard. I fed
Modestine with what haste I could ; but as I was
returning to my sack, I saw a man and a boy
come down the hillside in a direction crossing
mine. They unintelligibly hailed me, and I re-
plied with inarticulate but cheerful sounds, and
hurried forward to get into my gaiters.
The pair, who seemed to be father and son,
came slowly up to the plateau, and stood close be-
side me for some time in silence. The bed was
open, and I saw with regret my revolver lying
patently disclosed on the blue wool. At last, after
they had looked me all over, and silence had
grown laughably embarrassing, the man demanded
in what seemed unfriendly tones:
"You have slept here?"
"Yes," said I. "As you see.*
" Why ?" he asked.
" My faith," I answered lightly, " I was tired."
He next inquired where I was going and what
THE CAMISARDS 151
I had had for. dinner; and then, without the least
transition, " Cest bien" he added. " Come along."
And he and his son, without another word, turned
off to the next chestnut-tree but one, which they
set to pruning. The thing had passed off more
simply than I hoped. He was a grave, respect-
able man ; and his unfriendly voice did not imply
that he thought he was speaking to a criminal,
but merely to an inferior.
I was soon on the road, nibbling a cake of
chocolate and seriously occupied with a case of
conscience. Was I to pay for my night's lodg-
ing? I had slept ill, the bed was full of fleas in
the shape of ants, there was no water in the
room, the very dawn had neglected to call me in
the morning. I might have missed a train, had
there been any in the neighbourhood to catch.
Clearly, I was dissatisfied with my entertainment;
and I decided I should not pay unless I met a
beggar.
The valley looked even lovelier by morning;
and soon the road descended to the level of the
river. Here, in a place where many straight and
152 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
prosperous chestnuts stood together, making an
aisle upon a swarded terrace, I made my morning
toilette in the water of the Tarn. It was mar-
vellously clear, thrillingly cool ; the soap-suds dis-
appeared as if by magic in the swift current, and
the white boulders gave one a model for cleanli-
ness. To wash in one of God's rivers in the open
air seems to me a sort of cheerful solemnity or
semi-pagan act of worship. To dabble among
dishes in a bedroom may perhaps make clean the
body; but the imagination takes no share in such
a cleansing. I went on with a light and peaceful
heart, and sang psalms to the spiritual ear as I
advanced.
Suddenly up came an old woman, who point-
blank demanded alms.
"Good!" thought I; "here comes the waiter
with the ,bill."
[And I paid for my night's lodging on the spot.
Take it how you please, but this was the first and
the last beggar that I met with during all my
tour.
A step or two farther I was overtaken by an
THE CAMISARDS 153
old man in a brown nightcap, clear-eyed, weather-
beaten, with a faint, excited smile. A little girl
followed him, driving two sheep and a goat; but
she kept in our wake, while the old man walked
beside me and talked about the morning and the
valley. It was not much past six; and for
healthy people who have slept enough, that is
an hour of expansion and of open and trustful
talk.
" Connaissez-vous le Seigneur f" he said at
length,
I asked him what Seigneur he meant; but he
only repeated the question with more emphasis and
a look in his eyes denoting hope and interest,
" Ah ! " said I, pointing upwards, " I understand
you now. Yes, I know Him; He is the best of
acquaintances."
The old man said he was delighted. " Hold/*
he added, striking his bosom ; " it makes me happy
here." There were a few who knew the Lord in
these valleys, he went on to tell me; not many,
but a few. " Many are called," he quoted, " and
few chosen."
I 5 4 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
" My father/' said I, " it is not easy to say who
know the Lord; and it is none of our business.
Protestants and Catholics, and even those who
worship stones, may know Him and be known by
Him; for He has made all."
I did not know I was so good a preacher.
The old man assured me he thought as I did,
and repeated his expressions of pleasure at meet-
ing me. " We are so few," he said. " They call
us Moravians here; but down in the department
of Gard, where there are also a good number,
they are called Derbists, after an English pastor."
I began to understand that I was figuring, in
questionable taste, as a member of some sect to
me unknown; but I was more pleased with the
pleasure of my companion than embarrassed by
my own equivocal position. Indeed I can see no
dishonesty in not avowing a difference; and es-
pecially in these high matters, where we have all
a sufficient assurance that, whoever may be in
the wrong, we ourselves are not completely in the
right. The truth is much talked about; but this
old man in a brown nightcap showed himself so
THE CAMISARDS 155
simple, sweet, and friendly that I am not un-
willing to profess myself his convert. He was,
as a matter of fact, a Plymouth Brother. Of
what that involves in the way of doctrine I have
no idea nor the time to inform myself; but I
know right well that we are all embarked upon
a troublesome world, the children of one Father,
striving in many essential points to do and to
become the same. And although it was some-
what in a mistake that he shook hands with me
so often and showed himself so ready to receive
my words, that was a mistake of the truth-find-
ing sort. For charity begins blindfold; and only
through a series of similar misapprehensions rises
at length into a settled principle of love and pa-
tience, and a firm belief in all our fellow-men. If
I deceived this good old man, in the like manner
I would willingly go on to deceive others. And
if ever at length, out of our separate and sad
ways, we should all come together into one com-
mon house, I have a hope, to which I cling dearly,
that my mountain Plymouth Brother will hasten
to shake hands with me again*
156 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
Thus, talking like Christian and Faithful by
the way, he and I came down upon a hamlet by
the Tarn. It was but a humble place, called La
Vernede, with less than a dozen houses, and a
Protestant chapel on a knoll. Here he dwelt; and
here, at the inn, I ordered my breakfast. The
inn was kept by an agreeable young man, a stone-
breaker on the road, and his sister, a pretty and
engaging girl. The village school-master dropped
in to speak with the stranger. And these were
all Protestants a fact which pleased me more
than I should have expected; and, what pleased
me still more, they seemed all upright and simple
people. The Plymouth Brother hung round me
with a sort of yearning interest, and returned at
least thrice to make sure I was enjoying my meal.
His behaviour touched me deeply at the time, and
even now moves me in recollection. He feared
to intrude, but he would not willingly forego one
moment of my society; and he seemed never
weary of shaking me by the hand.
When all the rest had drifted off to their day's
work, I sat for near half an hour with the young
THE CAMISARDS 157
mistress of the house, who talked pleasantly over
her seam of the chestnut harvest, and the beauties
of the Tarn, and old family affections, broken up
when young folk go from home, yet still subsist-
ing. Hers, I am sure, was a sweet nature, with
a country plainness and much delicacy under-
neath; and he who takes her to his heart will
doubtless be a fortunate young man.
The valley below La Vernede pleased me more
and more as I went forward. Now the hills ap-
proached from either hand, naked and crumbling,
and walled in the river between cliffs; and now
the valley widened and became green. The road
led me past the old castle of Miral on a steep;
past a battlemented monastery, long since broken
up and turned into a church and parsonage; and
past a cluster of black roofs, the village of Co-
cures, sitting among vineyards and meadows and
orchards thick with red apples, and where, along
the highway, they were knocking down walnuts
from the roadside trees, and gathering them in
sacks and baskets. The hills, however much the
vale might open, were still tall and bare, with
158 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
cliffy battlements and here and there a pointed
summit; and the Tarn still rattled through the
stones with a mountain noise. I had been led,
by bagmen of a picturesque turn of mind, to ex-
pect a horrific country after the heart of Byron;
but to my Scotch eyes it seemed smiling and
plentiful, as the weather still gave an impression
of high summer to my Scotch body ; although the
chestnuts were already picked out by the autumn,
and the poplars, that here began to mingle with
them, had turned into pale gold against the ap-
proach of winter.
There was something in this landscape, smiling
although wild, that explained to me the spirit of
the Southern Covenanters. Those who took to
the hills for conscience' sake in Scotland had all
gloomy and bedevilled thoughts; for once that
they received God's comfort they would be twice
engaged with Satan; but the Camisards had only
bright and supporting visions. They dealt much
more in blood, both given and taken; yet I find
no obsession of the Evil One in their records.
With a light conscience, they pursued their life
THE CAMISARDS 159
in these rough times and circumstances. The soul
of Seguier, let us not forget, was like a garden.
They knew they were on God's side, with a
knowledge that has no parallel among the Scots;
for the Scots, although they might be certain o
the cause, could never rest confident of the person.
" We flew," says one old Camisard, " when we
heard the sound of psalm-singing, we flew as if
with wings. We felt within us an animating
ardour, a transporting desire. The feeling cannot
be expressed in words. It is a thing that must
have been experienced to be understood. How-
ever weary we might be, we thought no more of
our weariness and grew light, so soon as the
psalms fell upon our ears."
The valley of the Tarn and the people whom I
met at La Vernede not only explain to me this
passage, but the twenty years of suffering which
those, who were so stiff and so bloody when once
they betook themselves to war, endured with the
meekness of children and the constancy of saints
and peasants.
FLORAC
ON a branch of the Tarn stands Florae, the
seat of a subprefecture, with an old
castle, an alley of planes, many quaint
street-corners, and a live fountain welling from
the hill. It is notable, besides, for handsome
women, and as one of the two capitals, Alais being
the other, of the country of the Camisards.
The landlord of the inn took me, after I had
eaten, to an adjoining cafe, where I, or rather my
journey, became the topic of the afternoon. Every
one had some suggestion for my guidance; and
the subprefectorial map was fetched from the sub-
prefecture itself, and much thumbed among coffee-
cups and glasses of liqueur. Most of these kind
advisers were Protestant, though I observed that
Protestant and Catholic intermingled in a very
easy manner; and it surprised me to see what a
lively memory still subsisted of the religious war.
THE CAMISARDS 161
Among the hills of the south-west, by Mauchline,
Cumnock, or Carsphairn, in isolated farms or in
the manse, serious Presbyterian people still recall
the days of the great persecution, and the graves
of local martyrs are still piously regarded. But in
towns and among the so-called better classes, I
fear that these old doings have become an idle tale.
If you met a mixed company in the King's Arms
at Wigtown, it is not likely that the talk would
run on Covenanters. Nay, at Muirkirk of Glen-
luce, I found the beadle's wife had not so much as
heard of Prophet Peden. But these Cevenols were
proud of their ancestors in quite another sense;
the war was their chosen topic; its exploits were
their own patent of nobility; and where a man or
a race has had but one adventure, and that heroic,
we must expect and pardon some prolixity of ref-
erence. They told me the country was still full
of legends hitherto uncollected ; I heard from them
about Cavalier's descendants not direct descend-
ants, be it understood, but only cousins or nephews
who were still prosperous people in the scene
of the boy-general's exploits ; and one farmer had
ii
i6a TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
seen the bones of old combatants dug up into the
air of an afternoon in the nineteenth century, in
a field where the ancestors had fought, and the
great-grandchildren were peaceably ditching.
Later in the day one of the Protestant pastors
was so good as to visit* me: a young man, intelli-
gent and polite, with whom I passed an hour or
two in talk. Florae, he told me, is part Protestant,
part Catholic; and the difference in religion is
usually doubled by the diif erence in politics. You
may judge of .my surprise, coming as I did from
such a babbling purgatorial Poland of a place as
Monastier, when I learned that the population lived
together on very quiet terms ; and there was even
an exchange of hospitalities between households
thus doubly separated. Black Camisard and White
Camisard, militiaman and Miquelet and dragoon,
Protestant prophet and Catholic cadet of the White
Cross, they had all been sabring and shooting,
burning, pillaging and murdering, their hearts hot
with indignant passion; and here, after a hundred
and seventy years, Protestant is still Protestant,
Catholic still Catholic, in mutual toleration and
THE CAMISARDS 163
mild amity of life. But the race of man, like that
indomitable nature whence it sprang, has medi-
cating virtues of its own; the years and seasons
bring various harvests; the sun returns after the
rain; and mankind outlives secular animosities,
as a single man awakens from the passions of a
day. We judge our ancestors from a more divine
position; and the dust being a little laid with
several centuries, we can see both sides adorned
with human virtues and fighting with a show of
right.
I have never thought it easy to be just, and find
it daily even harder than I thought. I own I met
these Protestants with delight and a sense of
coming home. I was accustomed to speak their
language, in another and deeper sense of the word
than that which distinguishes between French and
English; for the true babel is a divergence upon
morals. And hence I could hold more free com-
munication with the Protestants, and judge them
more justly, than the Catholics. Father Apol-
linaris may pair off with my mountain Plymouth
Brother as two guileless and devout old men; yet
1 64 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
I ask myself if I had as ready a feeling for the
virtues of the Trappist; or had I been a Catholic,
if I should have felt so warmly to the dissenter
of La Vernede. With the first I was on terms of
mere forbearance; but with the other, although
only on a misunderstanding and by keeping on
selected points, it was still possible to hold converse
and exchange some honest thoughts. In this world
of imperfection we gladly welcome even partial
intimacies. If we find but one to whom we can
speak out of our heart freely, with whom we can
walk in love and simplicity without dissimulation,
we have no ground of quarrel with the world os
God.
IN THE VALLEY OF THE MIMENTE
ON Tuesday, ist October, we left Florae
late in the afternoon, a tired donkey and
tired donkey-driven A little way up the
Tarnon, a covered bridge of wood introduced us
into the valley of the Mimente. Steep rocky red
mountains overhung the stream; great oaks and
chestnuts grew upon the slopes or in stony ter-
races; here and there was a red field of millet or
a few apple-trees studded with red apples ; and the
road passed hard by two black hamlets, one with
an old castle atop to please the heart of the tourist.
It was difficult here again to find a spot fit for
my encampment Even under the oaks and chest-
nuts the ground had not only a very rapid slope,
but was heaped with loose stones ; and where there
was no timber the hills descended to the stream in
a red precipice tufted with heather. The sun had
left the highest peak in front of me, and the valley
166 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
was full of the lowing sound of herdsmen's horns
as they recalled the flocks into the stable, when
I spied a bight of meadow some way below the
roadway in an angle of the river. Thither I de-
scended, and, tying Modestine provisionally to a
tree, proceeded to investigate the neighbourhood.
A grey pearly evening shadow filled the glen;
objects at a little distance grew indistinct and
melted bafflingly into each other; and the dark-
ness was rising steadily like an exhalation. I ap-
proached a great oak which grew in the meadow,
hard by the river's brink; when to my disgust
the voices of children fell upon my ear, and I
beheld a house round the angle on the other
bank. I had half a mind to pack and be gone
again, but the growing darkness moved me to
remain. I had only to make no noise until the
night was fairly come, and trust to the dawn to
call me early in the morning. But it was hard
to be annoyed by neighbours in such a great
hotel.
A hollow underneath the oak was my bed. Be-
fore I had fed Modestine and arranged my sack,
THE CAMISARDS 167
three stars were already brightly shining, and the
others were beginning dimly to appear. I slipped
down to the river, which looked very black among
its rocks, to fill my can; and dined with a good
appetite in the dark, for I scrupled to light a lan-
tern while so near a house. The moon, which I
had seen, a pallid crescent, all afternoon, faintly
illuminated the summit of the hills, but not a ray
fell into the bottom of the glen where I was lying.
The oak rose before me like a pillar of darkness;
and overhead the heartsome stars were set in the
face of the night. No one knows the stars who
has not slept, as the French happily put it, a la
belle etoile. He may know all their names and
distances and magnitudes, and yet be ignorant
of what alone concerns mankind, their serene and
gladsome influence on the mind. The greater part
of poetry is about the stars; and very justly, for
they are themselves the most classical of poets.
These same far-away worlds, sprinkled like tapers
or shaken together like a diamond dust upon the
sky, had looked not otherwise to Roland or Cav-
alier, when, in the words of the latter, they had
168 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
" no other tent but the sky, and no other bed than
my mother earth."
All night a strong wind blew up the valley, and
the acorns fell pattering over me from the oak.
Yet, on this first night of October, the air was
as mild as May, and I slept with the fur thrown
back.
I was much disturbed by the barking of a dog,
an animal that I fear more than any wolf. A dog
is vastly braver, and is besides supported by the
sense of duty. If you kill a wolf, you meet with
encouragement and praise; but if you kill a dog,
the sacred rights of property and the domestic
affections come clamouring round you for re-
dress. At the end of a fagging day, the sharp,
cruel note of a dog's bark is in itself a keen
annoyance; and to a tramp like myself, he repre-
sents the sedentary and respectable world in its
most hostile form. There is something of the
clergyman or the lawyer about this engaging ani-
mal; and if he were not amenable to stones, the
boldest man would shrink from travelling afoot.
I respect dogs much in the domestic circle; but
THE CAMISARDS 169
on the highway or sleeping afield, I both detest
and fear them.
I was wakened next morning (Wednesday,
October 2d) by the same dog for I knew his
bark making a charge down the bank, and then,
seeing me sit up, retreating again with great alac-
rity. The stars were not yet quite extinguished.
The heaven was of that enchanting mild grey-blue
of the early morn. A still clear light began to fall,
and the trees on the hillside were outlined sharply
against the sky. The wind had veered more to
the north, and no longer reached me in the glen;
but as I was going on with my preparations, it
drove a white cloud very swiftly over the hill-top ;
and looking up, I was surprised to see the cloud
dyed with gold. In these high regions of the air
the sun was already shining as at noon. If only
the clouds travelled high enough, we should see
the same thing all night long. For it is always
daylight in the fields of space.
As I began to go up the valley, a draught of
wind came down it out of the seat of the sun-
rise, although the clouds continued to run over-
170 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
head in an almost contrary direction. A few steps
farther, and I saw a whole hillside gilded with
the sun; and still a little beyond, between two
peaks, a centre of dazzling brilliancy appeared
floating in the sky, and I was once more face to
face with the big bonfire that occupies the kernel
of our system.
I met but one human being that forenoon, a
dark military-looking wayfarer, who carried a
game-bag on a baldric; but he made a remark
that seems worthy of record. For when I asked
him if he were Protestant or Catholic
" O," said he, " I make no , shame of my reli-
gion. I am a Catholic."
He made no shame of it ! The phrase is a piece
of natural statistics; for it is the language of
one in a minority. I thought with a smile of
Bavile and his dragoons, and how you may ride
rough-shod over a religion for a century, and
leave it only the more lively for the friction.
Ireland is still Catholic; the Cevennes still Protes-
tant. It is not a basketful of law-papers, nor the
hoofs and pistol-butts of a regiment of horse, that
THE CAMISARDS 171
can change one tittle of a ploughman's thoughts.
Outdoor rustic people have not many ideas, but
such as they have are hardy plants and thrive
flourishingly in persecution. One who has grown
a long while in the sweat of laborious noons, and
under the stars at night, a frequenter of hills and
forests, an old honest countryman, has, in the
end, a sense of communion with the powers of
the universe, and amicable relations towards his
God. Like my mountain Plymouth Brother, he
knows the Lord. His religion does not repose
upon a choice of logic; it is the poetry of the
man's experience, the philosophy of the history
of his life- God, like a great power, like a great
shining sun, has appeared to this simple fellow
in the course of years, and become the ground
and essence of his least reflections; and you may
change creeds and dogmas by authority, or pro-
claim a new religion with the sound of trumpets,
if you will; but here is a man who has his own
thoughts, and will stubbornly adhere to them in
good and evil* He is a Catholic, a Protestant, or
a Plymouth Brother, in the same indefeasible sense
172 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
that a man is not a woman, or a woman not a
man. For he could not vary from his faith, un-
less he could eradicate all memory of the past,
and, in a strict and not a conventional meaning,
change his mind.
THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY
I WAS now drawing near to Cassagnas, a
cluster of black roofs upon the hillside, in
this wild valley, among chestnut gardens,
and looked upon in the clear air by many rocky
peaks. The road along the Mimente is yet new,
nor have the mountaineers recovered their sur-
prise when the first cart arrived at Cassagnas.
But although it lay thus apart from the current
of men's business, this hamlet had already made
a figure in the history of France. Hard by, in
caverns of the mountain, was one of the five
arsenals of the Camisards; where they laid up
clothes and corn and arms against necessity, forged
bayonets and sabres, and made themselves gun-
powder with willow charcoal and saltpetre boiled
in kettles. To the same caves, amid this multi-
farious industry, the sick and wounded were
brought up to heal; and there they were visited
174 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
by the two surgeons, Chabrier and Tavan, and
secretly nursed by women of the neighbourhood.
O the five legions into which the Camisards
were divided, it was the oldest and the most
obscure that had its magazines by Cassagnas.
This was the band of Spirit Seguier; men who
had joined their voices with his in the 68th Psalm
as they marched down by night on the archpriest
of the Cevennes. Seguier, promoted to heaven,
was succeeded by Salomon Couderc, whom Cava-
lier treats in his memoirs as chaplain-general to
the whole army of the Camisards. He was a
prophet; a great reader of the heart, who ad-
mitted people to the sacrament or refused them
by " intentively viewing every man " between the
eyes; and had the most of the Scriptures off by
rote. And this was surely happy; since in a
surprise in August, 1703, he lost his mule, his
portfolios, and his Bible. It is only strange that
they were not surprised more often and mortf
effectually ; for this legion of Cassagnas was truly
patriarchal in its theory of war, and camped
without sentries, leaving that duty to the angels
THE CAMISARDS 175
of the God for whom they fought. This is a
token, not only of their faith, but of the track-
less country where they harboured. M. de Cala-
don, taking a stroll one fine day, walked without
warning into their midst, as he might have walked
into "a flock of sheep in a plain," and found
some asleep and some awake and psalm-singing.
A traitor had need of no recommendation to in-
sinuate himself among their ranks, beyond " his
faculty of singing psalms " ; and even the prophet
Salomon " took him into a particular friendship."
Thus, among their intricate hills, the rustic troop
subsisted; and history can attribute few exploits
to them but sacraments and ecstasies.
People of this tough and simple stock will not,
as I have just been saying, prove variable in re-
ligion; nor will they get nearer to apostasy than
a mere external conformity like that of Naaman
in the house of Rimmon. When Louis XVL, in
the words of the edict, " convinced by the useless-
ness of a century of persecutions, and rather from
necessity than sympathy," granted at last a royal
grace of toleration, Cassagnas was still Protestant ;
176 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
and to a man, it is so to this day. There is, in-
deed, one family that is not Protestant, but neither
is it Catholic. It is that of a Catholic cure in
revolt, who has taken to his bosom a schoolmis-
tress. And his conduct, it 's worth noting, is d*s-
approved by the Protestant villagers.
" It is a bad idea for a man," said one, " to
go back from his engagements."
The villagers whom I saw seemed intelligent
after a countrified fashion, and were all plain and
dignified in manner. As a Protestant myself, I
was well looked upon, and my acquaintance with
history gained me farther respect. For we had
something not unlike a religious controversy at
table, a gendarme and a merchant with whom
I dined being both strangers to the place and
Catholics. The young men of the house stood
round and supported me; and the whole discus-
sion was tolerantly conducted, and surprised a
man brought up among the infinitesimal and con-
tentious differences of Scotland. The merchant,
indeed, grew a little warm, and was far less
pleased than some others with my historical ac-
THE CAMISARDS 177
quirements. But the gendarme was mighty easy
over it all.
"It's a bad idea for a man to change," said
he ; and the remark was generally applauded.
That was not the opinion of .the priest and
soldier at our Lady of the Snows. But this is
a different race; and perhaps the same great-
heartedness that upheld them to resist, now
enables them to differ in a kind spirit. For
courage respects courage; but where a faith has
been trodden out, we may look for a mean and
narrow population. The true work of Bruce and
Wallace was the union of the nations; not that
they should stand apart awhile longer, skirmish-
ing upon their borders; but that, when the time
came, they might unite with self-respect. The
merchant was much interested in my journey, and
thought it dangerous to sleep afield.
" There are the wolves," said he; " and then it
is known you are an Englishman. The English
have always long purses, and it might very well
enter into some one's head to deal you an ill blow
some night."
is
178 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
I told him I was not much afraid of such acci-
dents ; and at any rate judged it unwise to dwell
upon alarms or consider small perils in the ar-
rangement of life. Life itself, I submitted, was
a far too risky business as a whole to make each
additional particular of danger worth regard.
" Something," said I, " might burst in your in-
side any day of the week, and there would be
an end of you, if you were locked into your
room with three turns of the key."
" Cependant," said he, " coucher dehors ! "
"God," said I, "is everywhere."
" Cependant, coucher dehors! " he repeated, and
his voice was eloquent of terror.
He was the only person, in all my voyage, who
saw anything hardy in so simple a proceeding;
although many considered it superfluous. Only
one, on the other hand, professed much delight
in the idea; and that was my Plymouth Brother,
who cried out, when I told him I sometimes pre-
ferred sleeping under the stars to a dose and
noisy alehouse, "Now I see that you know the
Lord!"
THE CAMISARDS 179
The merchant asked me for one of my cards
as I was leaving, for he said I should be some-
thing to talk of in the future, and desired me
to make a note of his request and reason; a de-
sire with which I have thus complied.
A little after two I struck across the Mimente,
and took a rugged path southward up a hillside
covered with loose stones and tufts of heather.
At the top, as is the habit of the country, the
path disappeared; and I left my she-ass munch-
ing heather, and went forward alone to seek a
road.
I was now on the separation of two vast water-
sheds; behind me all the streams were bound for
the Garonne and the Western Ocean; before me
was the basin of the Rhone. Hence, as from the
Lozere, you can see in clear weather the shining
of the Gulf of Lyons; and perhaps from here
the soldiers of Salomon may have watched for
the topsails of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, and the
long-promised aid from England. You may take
this ridge as lying in the heart of the country of
the Camisards; four of the five legions camped
TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
all round it and almost within view Salomon
and Joani to the north, Castanet and Roland to
the south; and when Julien had finished his fa-
mous work, the devastation of the High Cevennes,
which lasted all through October and November,
1703, and during which four hundred and sixty
villages and hamlets were, with fire and pickaxe,
utterly subverted, a man standing on this emi-
nence would have looked forth upon a silent,
smokeless, and dispeopled land. Time and man's
activity have now repaired these ruins ; Cassagnas
is once more roofed and sending up domestic
smoke; and in the chestnut gardens, in low and
leafy corners, many a prosperous farmer returns,
when the day's work is done, to his children and
bright hearth. And still it was perhaps the wild-
est view of all my journey. Peak upon peak,
chain upon chain of hills ran surging southward,
channelled and sculptured by the winter streams,
feathered from head to foot with chestnuts, and
here and there breaking out into a coronal of
cliffs. The sun, which was still far from setting,
sent a drift of misty gold across the hill-tops, but
THE CAMISARDS 181
the valleys were already plunged in a profound
and quiet shadow.
A very old shepherd, hobbling on a pair of
sticks, and wearing a black cap of liberty, as if
in honour of his nearness to the grave, directed
me to the road for St. Germain de Calberte.
There was something solemn in the isolation of
this infirm and ancient creature. Where he dwelt,
how he got upon this high ridge, or how he pro-
posed to get down again, were more than I could
fancy. Not far off upon my right was the famous
Plan de Font Morte, where Poul with his Arme-
nian sabre slashed down the Camisards of Seguier.
This, methought, might be some Rip van Winkle
of the war, who had lost his comrades, fleeing
before Poul, and wandered ever since upon the
mountains. It might be news to him that
Cavalier had surrendered, or Roland had fallen
fighting with his back against an olive. And
while I was thus working on my fancy, I
heard him hailing in broken tones, and saw him
waving me to come back with one of his two
sticks. I had already got some way past him;
182 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
but, leaving Modestine once more, retraced my
steps.
Alas, it was a very commonplace affair. The
old gentleman had forgot to ask the pedlar what
he sold, and wished to remedy this neglect.
I told him sternly, " Nothing."
"Nothing?" cried he.
I repeated " Nothing/' and made off.
It 's odd to think of, but perhaps I thus became as
inexplicable to the old man as he had been to me.
The road lay under chestnuts, and though I
saw a hamlet or two below me in the vale, and
many lone houses of the chestnut fanners, it was
a very solitary march all afternoon ; and the even-
ing began early underneath the trees. But I heard
the voice of a woman singing some sad, old, end-
less ballad not far off. It seemed to be about love
and a bel amour eux, her handsome sweetheart;
and I wished I could have taken up the strain and
answered her, as I went on upon my invisible
woodland way, weaving, like Pippa in the poem,
my own thoughts with hers. What could I have
told her? Little enough; and yet all the heart
THE CAMISARDS 183
requires. How the world gives and takes away,
and brings sweethearts near, only to separate them
again, into distant and strange lands ; but to love
is the great amulet which makes the world a
garden; and "hope, which comes to all," out-
wears the accidents of life, and reaches with trem-
ulous hand beyond the grave and death. Easy
to say: yea, but also, by God's mercy, both easy
and grateful to believe!
We struck at last into a wide white highroad,
carpeted with noiseless dust. The night had come;
the moon had been shining for a long while upon
the opposite mountain; when on turning a corner
my donkey and I issued ourselves into her light.
I had emptied out my brandy at Florae, for I could
bear the stuff no longer, and replaced it with some
generous and scented Volnay; and now I drank
to the moon's sacred majesty upon the road. It
was but a couple of mouthfuls; yet I became
thenceforth unconscious of my limbs, and my blood
flowed with luxury. Even Modestine was in-
spired by this purified nocturnal sunshine, and
bestirred her little hoofs as to a livelier measure.
1 84 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
The road wound and descended swiftly among
masses of chestnuts. Hot dust rose from our feet
and flowed away. Our two shadows mine de-
formed with the knapsack, hers comically be-
stridden by the pack now lay before us clearly
outlined on the road, and now, as we turned a
corner, went off into the ghostly distance, and
sailed along the mountainlike clouds. From time
to time a warm wind rustled down the valley, and
set all the chestnuts dangling their bunches of
foliage and fruit; the ear was filled with whisper-
ing music, and the shadows danced in tune- And
next moment the breeze had gone by, and in all
the valley nothing moved except our travelling
feet. On the opposite slope, the monstrous ribs
and gullies of the mountain were faintly designed
in the moonshine; and high overhead, in some
lone house, there burned one lighted window, one
square spark of red in the huge field of sad noc-
turnal colouring.
At a certain point, as I went downward, turning
many acute angles, the moon disappeared behind
the hill; and I pursued my way in great darkness,
THE CAMISARDS 185
until another turning shot me without preparation
into St. Germain de Calberte. The place was
asleep and silent, and buried in opaque night. Only
from a single open door, some lamplight escaped
upon the road to show me I was come among men's
habitations. The two last gossips of the evening,
still talking by a garden wall, directed me to the
inn. The landlady was getting her chicks to bed;
the fire was already out, and had, not without
grumbling, to be rekindled; half an hour later,
and I must have gone supperless to roost.
THE LAST DAY
WHEN I awoke (Thursday, 3d October),
and, hearing a great flourishing of
cocks and chuckling of contented hens,
betook me to the window of the clean and com-
fortable room where I had slept the night, I looked
forth on a sunshiny morning in a deep vale of chest-
nut gardens. It was still early, and the cock-crows,
and the slanting lights, and the long shadows en-
couraged me to be out and look round me.
St. Germain de Calberte is a great parish nine
leagues round about. At the period of the wars,
and immediately before the devastation, it was
inhabited by two hundred and seventy-five families,
of which only nine were Catholic; and it took the
cure seventeen September days to go from house
to house on horseback for a census. But the place
itself, although capital of a canton, is scarce larger
than a hamlet It lies terraced across a steep slope
THE CAMISARDS 187
in the midst of mighty chestnuts. The Protestant
chapel stands below upon a shoulder ; in the midst
of the town is the quaint old Catholic church.
It was here that poor Du Chayla, the Christian
martyr, kept his library and held a court of mis-
sionaries; here he had built his tomb, thinking
to lie among a grateful population whom he had
redeemed from error; and hither on the morrow
of his death they brought the body, pierced with
two-and-fifty wounds, to be interred. Clad in his
priestly robes, he was laid out in state in the church.
The cure, taking his text from Second Samuel,
twentieth chapter and twelfth verse, " And Amasa
wallowed in his blood in the highway," preached
a rousing sermon, and exhorted his brethren to
die each at his post, like their unhappy and illus-
trious superior. In the midst of this eloquence
there came a breeze that Spirit Seguier was near
at hand ; and behold ! all the assembly took to their
horses' heels, some east, some west, and the cure
himself as far as Alais.
Strange was the position of this little Catholic
metropolis, a thimbleful of Rome, in such a wild
1 88 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
and contrary neighbourhood. On the one hand,
the legion of Salomon overlooked it from Cas-
sagnas ; on the other, it was cut off. from assistance
by the legion of Roland at Mialet. The cure,
Louvrelenil, although he took a panic at the arch-
priesfs funeral, and so hurriedly decamped to
Alais, stood well by his isolated pulpit, and thence
uttered fulminations against the crimes of the
Protestants. Salomon besieged the village for an
hour and a half, but was beat back. The militia-
men, on guard before the cure's door, could be
heard, in the black hours, singing Protestant psalms
and holding friendly talk with the insurgents.
And in the morning, although not a shot had been
fired, there would not be a round of powder in
their flasks. Where was it gone ? All handed over
to the Camisards for a consideration. Untrusty
guardians for an isolated priest!
That these continual stirs were once busy in St.
Germain de Calberte, the imagination with diffi-
culty receives; all is now so quiet, the pulse of
human life now beats so low and still in this hamlet
of the mountains. Boys followed me a great way
THE CAMISARDS 189
jff, like a timid sort of lion-hunters; and people
turned round to have a second look, or came out
of their houses, as I went by. My passage was
the first event, you would have fancied, since the
Camisards. There was nothing rude or forward
in this observation ; it was but a pleased and won-
dering scrutiny, like that of oxen or the human
infant; yet it wearied my spirits, and soon drove
me from the street
I took refuge on the terraces, which are here
greenly carpeted with sward, and tried to imitate
with a pencil the inimitable attitudes of the chest-
nuts as they bear up their canopy of leaves. Ever
and again a little wind went by, and the nuts
dropped all around me, with a light and dull sound,
upon the sward. The noise was as of a thin fall
of great hailstones ; but there went with it a cheer-
ful human sentiment of an approaching harvest
and farmers rejoicing in their gains. Looking up,
I could see the brown nut peering through the
husk, which was already gaping; and between the
stems the eye embraced an amphitheatre of hill,
sunlit and green with leaves.
I 9 o TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
I have not often enjoyed a place more deeply.
I moved in an atmosphere of pleasure, and felt
light and quiet and content. But perhaps it was
not the place alone that so disposed my spirit.
Perhaps some one was thinking of me in another
country; or perhaps some thought of my own
had come and gone unnoticed, and yet done me
good. For some thoughts, which sure would be
the most beautiful, vanish before we can rightly
scan their features; as though a god, travelling
by our green highways, should but ope the door,
give one smiling look into the house, and go again
for ever. Was it Apollo, or Mercury, or Love with
folded wings? Who shall say? But we go the
lighter about our business, and feel peace and
pleasure in our hearts.
I dined with a pair of Catholics. They agreed
in the condemnation of a young man, a Catholic,
who had married a Protestant girl and gone over
to the religion of his wife. A Protestant born they
could understand and respect ; indeed, they seemed
to be of the mind of an old Catholic woman, who
told me that same day there was no difference
THE CAMISARDS 191
between the two sects, save that " wrong was more
wrong for the Catholic/' who had more light and
guidance; but this of a man's desertion filled them
with contempt.
" It is a bad idea for a man to change/' said one.
It may have been accidental, but you see how
this phrase pursued me ; and for myself, I believe
it is the current philosophy in these parts. I have
some difficulty in imagining a better. It ? s not only
a great flight of confidence for a man to change
his creed and go out of his family for heaven's
sake; but the odds are nay, and the hope is
that, with all this great transition in the eyes of
man, he has not changed himself a hair's-breadth
to the eyes of God. Honour to those who do so,
for the wrench is sore. But it argues something
narrow, whether of strength or weakness, whether
of the prophet or the fool, in those who can take
a sufficient interest in such infinitesimal and human
operations, or who can quit a friendship for a
doubtful process of the mind. And I think I
should not leave my old creed for another, chang-
ing only words for other words ; but by some brave
i 9 2 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
reading, embrace it in spirit and truth, and find
wrong as wrong for me as for the best of other
communions.
The phylloxera was in the neighbourhood; and
instead of wine we drank at dinner a more econom-
ical juice of the grape la Parisienne, they call
it It is made by putting the fruit whole into a
cask with water; one by one the berries ferment
and burst; what is drunk during the day is sup-
plied at night in water; so, with ever another
pitcher from the well, and ever another grape
exploding and giving out its strength, one cask
of Parisienne may last a family till spring. It is,
as the reader will anticipate, a feeble beverage, but
very pleasant to the taste.
What with dinner and coffee, it was long past
three before I left St. Germain de Calberte. I
went down beside the Gardon of Mialet, a great
glaring watercourse devoid of water, and through
St. Etienne de Vallee Frangaise, or Val Fran-
cesque, as they used to call it; and towards even-
ing began to ascend the hill of St. Pierre. It was
a long and steep ascent Behind me an empty
THE CAMISARDS 193
carriage returning to St. Jean du Gard kept hard
upon my tracks, and near the summit overtook
me. The driver, like the rest of the world, was
sure I was a pedlar; but, unlike others, he was
sure of what I had to sell He had noticed the blue
wool which hung out of my pack at either end;
and from this he had decided, beyond my power
to alter his decision, that I dealt in blue-wool
collars, such as decorate the neck of the French
draught-horse.
I had hurried to the topmost powers of Mo-
destine, for I dearly desired to see the view upon
the other side before the day had faded. But it
was night when I reached the summit; the moon
was riding high and clear; and only a few grey
streaks of twilight lingered in the west. A yawn-
ing valley, gulfed in blackness, lay like a hole in
created Nature at my feet; but the outline of the
hills was sharp against the sky. There was Mount
Aigoal, the stronghold of Castanet. And Castanet,
not only as an active undertaking leader, deserves
some mention among Camisards; for there is a
sprziy of rose among his laurel; and he showed
i 9 4 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
how, even in a public tragedy, love will have its
way. In the high tide of war he married, in his
mountain citadel, a young and pretty lass called
Mariette. There were great rejoicings; and the
bridegroom released five-and-twenty prisoners in
honour of the glad event. Seven months after-
wards Mariette, the Princess of the Cevennes, as
they called her in derision, fell into the hands of
the authorities, where it was like to have gone hard
with her. But Castanet was a man of execution,
and loved his wife. He fell on Valleraugue, and
got a lady there for a hostage; and for the first
and last time in that war there was an exchange
of prisoners. Their daughter, pledge of some
starry night upon Mount Aigoal, has left descend-
ants to this day.
Modestine and I it was our last meal together
had a snack upon the top of St. Pierre, I on
a heap of stones, she standing by me in the moon-
light and decorously eating bread out of my hand.
The poor brute would eat more heartily in this
manner; for she had a sort of affection for me,
which I was soon to betray.
THE CAMISARDS 195
It was a long descent upon St. Jean du Card,
and we met no one but a carter, visible afar off
by the glint of the moon on his extinguished
lantern.
Before ten o'clock we had got in and were at
supper; fifteen miles and a stiff hill in little beyond
six hours!
FAREWELL, MODESTINE
ON examination, on the morning of Oc-
tober 4th, Modestine was pronounced
unfit for travel. She would need at
least two days' repose according to the ostler;
but I was now eager to reach Alais for my let-
ters; and, being in a civilised country of stage-
coaches, I determined to sell my lady-friend and
be off by the diligence that afternoon. Our yes-
terday's march, with the testimony of the driver
who had pursued us up the long hill of St. Pierre,
spread a favourable notion of my donkey's capa-
bilities. Intending purchasers were aware of an un-
rivalled opportunity. Before ten I had an offer of
twenty-five francs ; and before noon, after a desper-
ate engagement, I sold her, saddle and all, for five-
and-thirty. The pecuniary gain is not obvious,
but I had bought freedom into the bargain.
St. Jean du Gard is a large place and largely;
THE CAMISARDS 197
Protestant. The maire, a Protestant, asked me
to help him in a small matter which is itself
characteristic of the country. The young women
of the Cevennes profit by the common religion
and the difference of the language to go largely
as governesses into England; and here was one,
a native of Mialet, struggling with English cir-
culars from two different agencies in London. I
gave what help I could; and volunteered some
advice, which struck me as being excellent.
One thing more I note. The phylloxera has
ravaged the vineyards in this neighbourhood; and
in the early morning, under some Chestnuts by
ihe river, I found a party of men working with
a cider-press. I could not at first make out what
they were after, and asked one fellow to explain.
" Making cider," he said. ff Oui, c'est comme
ga. Comme dans le nor A I "
There was a ring of sarcasm in his voice; the
country was going to the devil.
It was not until I was fairly seated by the driver,
and rattling through a rocky valley with dwarf
olives, that I became aware of my bereavement.
198 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY
I had lost Modestine. Up to that moment I had
thought I hated her; but now she was gone,
" And, O,
The difference to me ! "
For twelve days we had been fast compan-
ions; we had travelled upwards of a hundred
and twenty miles, crossed several respectable
ridges, and jogged along with our six legs by
many a rocky and many a boggy by-road. After
the first day, athough sometimes I was hiirt and
distant in manner, I still kept my patience; and
as for her, poor soul! she had come to regard
me as a god. She loved to eat out of my hand.
She was patient, elegant in form, the colour of
an ideal mouse, and inimitably small. Her faults
were those of her race and sex; her virtues were
her own. Farewell, and if for ever
Father Adam wept when he sold her to me;
after I had sold her in my turn, I was tempted
to follow his example; and being alone with a
stage-driver and four or five agreeable young men,
I did not hesitate to yield to my emotion.
