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Title: The Roof of France

Author: Matilda Betham-Edwards

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Release Date: October, 2005
First Posted: September 2, 2003

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THE ROOF OF FRANCE

OR

THE CAUSSES OF THE LOZÈRE


BY

M. BETHAM-EDWARDS



To M. SADI CARNOT.

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




CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTORY

PART I.

_MY FIRST JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF THE CAUSSES_.

CHAP.

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

PART II.

_MY SECOND JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF THE CAUSSES._

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




INTRODUCTORY.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




THE ROOF OF FRANCE


PART I.

_MY FIRST JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF THE CAUSSES._




CHAPTER I.

FROM LE PUY TO MENDE.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And the boots would make affectionate reply:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




CHAPTER II.

MENDE.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




CHAPTER III.

A GLIMPSE OF THE CAUSSES.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                   'Should life be dull and spirits low,
                       'Twill soothe us in our sorrow,
                   That earth has something yet to show,
                       The bonny holms of Yarrow.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Are there no small farms here, then?'

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

'Is he a peasant?' I asked.

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

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




CHAPTER IV.

ON THE TOP OF THE ROOF.


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

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

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

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

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

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

And the reply would be:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'And what would these ladies like for breakfast?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Never shall I forget the amazement of my host.

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

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




CHAPTER V.

RODEZ AND AURILLAC.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




CHAPTER VI.

THE LAND OF THE BURON.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




PART II


MY SECOND JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF THE CAUSSES.


CHAPTER I.

THROUGH THE MORVAN.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The huge sarcophagus in the wall is a cenotaph.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




CHAPTER II.

THROUGH THE MORVAN (continued).


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




CHAPTER III.

FROM LYONS TO AVIGNON BY THE RHÔNE.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




CHAPTER IV.

AVIGNON AND ORANGE.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This was her account:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




CHAPTER V.

LE VIGAN.


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

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

The modern aspect of Nîmes is worthy of note.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




CHAPTER VI.

NANT (AVEYRON).


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He paused, and added after a little reflection:

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

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

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

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

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

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

We then had a long talk on farming matters, the old man quite ready to
devote half an hour even at this time of the day to a stranger. Like
many another French peasant of the poorer class, he was the owner of a
house and garden only, his occupation being that of bailiff on the
estate of a large owner. Here, as everywhere else throughout France, a
great diversity may be seen in the matter of land tenure--peasant
properties from five acres upwards, large holdings either let on lease,
as in England, cultivated by their owners, or lastly, as in the present
instance, managed by farm stewards. The system of métayage, or
half-profits, is not in force.

On five acres, my informant told me, a man with thrift and intelligence
may rear and maintain a family. The crops are very varied, corn, maize,
oats, rye, buckwheat, hay, being the principal. Butter is not made on
any considerable scale, but sheep, pigs, goats, and poultry are reared
in abundance.

I have mentioned that this old man possessed a house and garden. Rare,
indeed, is it to find a deserving peasant without them in France! But
he let these, meantime occupying the large, rambling old farmhouse,
formerly an abbey, belonging to his employer. When too old to work, he
would, with his little savings, retire to the cottage, from which none
could eject him.

As will be seen, the agriculture in this part of the Aveyron presents
no special features. What strikes the stranger, as he rambles about the
well-cultivated belt of country immediately around Nant, is the
sobriety, contentment, and independence of the people. All are suitably
and tidily dressed. Of beggary there is not a trace, and if life is
laborious, the sense of independence lightens every burden.

At present the entire education of girls and that of little boys is in
the hands of the nuns. In spite of every attempt to render popular
education unsectarian throughout France, how long it will be ere the
same mental training is accorded both sexes--ere, to use Gambetta's
noble words, 'our girls and boys are made one by the understanding
before they are made one by the heart'! Is it any wonder that
Boulangism, miracle-seeking, or any other mental aberration, gets the
upper hand in France, so long as young girls are reared by convent-bred
women, and their brothers and lovers-to-be in the school of Littré,
Herbert Spencer, and Darwin?




CHAPTER VII.

MILLAU (AVEYRON).


It is a charming drive from Nant to Millau. Our road winds round the
delicious little valley of the Dourbie, the river ever cerulean blue,
bordered with hay-fields, in which lies the fragrant crop of autumn hay
ready for carting. By the wayside are tall acacias, their green
branches tasselled with dark purple pods, or apple trees, the ripening
fruit within reach of our hands. Little Italian-like towns, surrounded
by ochre-coloured walls, are terraced here and there on the rich
burnt-amber walls, the limestone ridges above and around taking the
form of a long line of rampart or lofty fortress, built and fashioned
by human hands. In contrast to this savagery, we have ever and anon
before our eyes the sweet little river, no sooner lost to sight amid
willow-bordered banks than found again.

Nervous people should avoid these drives, on account of the steep
precipices, often within a few inches of the horses' heels. Wherever on
the shelves of rock a few square yards of soil are found or can be
laid, are tiny crops of buckwheat, potatoes, and beetroot. The weather
has a southern warmth and brilliance, and in and out the burning-hot
mountain wall on our left large beautiful brown lizards disport
themselves. The road is very solitary. Till within the precincts of
Millau, we meet only a few peasants and two Franciscan brothers.

The approach to Millau is very pretty. Almond and peach orchards,
vineyards and gardens, form a bright suburban belt. Two rivers, the
Tarn and the Dourbie, water its pleasant valley, whilst over the town
tower lofty rocks in the form of an amphitheatre. Nant may be described
as a little idyll. After it Millau comes disenchantingly by comparison.

Never was I in such a noisy, roystering, singing, lounging place. There
was no special cause for hilarity; nothing was going on; the business
of daily life seemed to be the making a noise.

In spite of its pretty entourage, too, the town is not engaging. Its
hot, ill-kept, malodorous streets do not call forth an exploring frame
of mind. The public garden is, however, a delightful promenade, and
the well-known photographer of these regions has his atelier in one of
the most curious old houses to be seen anywhere.

Climbing a narrow, winding stone stair, we come upon an open court,
with balconies running round each story, carved stone pillars
supporting these; oleanders and pomegranates in pots make the ledges
bright, whilst above the gleaming white walls shines a sky of Oriental
brilliance. The whole interior is animated. Here women sit at their
glove-making, the principal industry of the place, children play, pet
dogs and cats sun themselves; all is sunny, careless, southern life--a
page out of 'Graziella.'

There are several mediæval façades, and some curious old carved arcades
also; much, indeed, that is sketch worthy, if our artists could be
brought to deem anything worth sketching in France, out of Brittany and
Normandy.

Millau, once one of the stanchest Protestant communities of the
Cévennes, was quite ruined by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

May not French history up to the date of the Revolution be summed up in
a single sentence--one woman created France; another ruined it? The
glorious work of Jeanne d'Arc was for a time wholly undone by the
machinations of that arch enemy of mankind, Madame de Maintenon. We
must travel in the Cévennes, and learn by heart the vicissitudes of
these once-flourishing little Protestant centres to realize the
bloodstained page in French history played by the bigoted adventuress
whose sole ambition was to become Queen of France.

And how worthy of such a career the last little episode of her court
life! When the old king, a shadow of his former self, lay on his dying
bed, and whispered that his chief consolation in dying was the thought
that she would rejoin him in heaven, Madame de Maintenon made no reply.
She was, indeed, wearied of the task that had been, in her eyes, so
inadequately rewarded--amusing for thirty and odd years a dull,
resourceless, ennuyé and ennuyant husband; and had no desire to see any
more of him, either in this world or the next.

At present there is but a sprinkling of Protestants in Millau.

We took train to Mende. It is one of those delightfully slow trains
which enable you to see the scenery in detail, after the leisurely
fashion of Arthur Young, trotting through France on his Suffolk mare.

Part of the way lies through a romantic bit of country: château-crowned
hills follow each other in succession, every dark crag having its
feudal shell, whilst patchwork crops cover the lower slopes.

Everywhere vineyards predominate, so persistent the faith of the French
cultivator in the vine, so touching the efforts made to entice it to
grow on French soil. Few and far between are little wall-encompassed
villages perched on the hilltops.

At Sévérac-le-Château romance culminates in the stern, yellowish-gray
ruin cresting the green heights. A most picturesque little place is
this, seen from the railway. We now leave behind us cornlands and the
vine, and reach the region of pine and fir woods.

On the railway embankment we see the yellow-horned poppy and the golden
thistle growing in abundance; many another flower, too, as brilliant
brightens the way-a large, handsome broom, several kinds of mullein,
with fern and heather.

Bright and strongly contrasted are the hues of the
landscape--purply-black the far-off mountains, emerald-green the fields
of rye and clover at their feet. A large portion of the land hereabouts
is mere wilderness; yet the indomitable peasant wrenches up the
boulders, cleans the ground of stones, and turns, inch by inch, the
waste into productive soil. At every turn we are reminded of the dictum
of 'that wise and honest traveller,' Arthur Young: 'The magic of
property turns sands to gold.'

We are now in the region of the Causses; around us rise the spurs of
Sauveterre and Sévérac. The scenery between Marvejols and Mende is
grand; sombre, deep-green valleys, shut in by wide stretches of
stupendous rocky wall, dark pinewoods, and brown wastes.

Then evening closes in, and the rest is lost to us. As on my first
visit to Mende, a year ago, I lose the romantic approach to this
wonderfully placed little city.

The Hôtel Manse, whither we now betake ourselves, is a great
improvement on the other mentioned in my first chapter in matters of
situation, sanitation, and comfort; the people are very civil and
obliging in both.

Here, however, we are not in the very heart of the stuffy, dirty,
ill-kept town, but on the outskirts, looking on to suburban gardens and
pleasant hills, with plenty of air to breathe.

Our rooms are so spacious, well-furnished, and clean that once more we
regret we cannot stay for weeks. Such quarters might indeed tempt many
a tourist to idle away a month here. The people are well-mannered,
affable, and strikingly handsome; and if the town requires an advanced
ædileship, no one need see much of it. Abundance of excursions are to
be made from Mende, and the prices of hotels are very moderate.

At Millau we saw a drunken man, and in the streets of Mende one old
woman came up to us begging an alms. I note these facts as we have so
rarely encountered either drunkards or mendicants on our way.

Strangers might naturally expect a somewhat low standard of morality in
a department so isolated from the great French highways and social
centres as that of the Lozère. The railway to Mende, as I have before
mentioned, dates from a few years only; up till that time the little
bishopric in the mountains would often be completely shut off from the
outer world by the snow, the only link being the telegraphic wire.
Nevertheless, an exceptional freedom from crime distinguishes the
country, as may be gathered from the following statement in a French
newspaper, dated August 29th, 1888.

'The opening of the assizes of the Lozère, which should have taken
place on the 3rd of September, will now be unnecessary, the list of
cases being _nil_.' What are called 'white sessions' (assises
blanches), for the matter of that, are of no infrequent occurrence in
the department of the Lozère, eminently an honest one. This is the
second time that 'white sessions' have distinguished it during the
present year.

As the Lozère is essentially a region of peasant owners, far from the
richest of their class, I commend the fact to the opponents of peasant
property--albeit, I know too well, to small purpose. The people have no
right to the soil in the eyes of these political economists. Whether
the possession of the soil makes them better or happier is wholly
beside the question. Just as the great autocrat Louis XIV, after very
serious reflection on the matter, came to the solemn conclusion that
his subjects had no right to any property whatever, and that the
sovereign was the divinely-ordained owner of everything supposed to
belong to them, so certain writers believe that, according to some
direct Providential arrangement--a second choosing of a special
people--not a Canaan alone, but every inch of Mother Earth, is the
heaven-sent heritage of the superior few.




CHAPTER VIII.

FROM MENDE TO ST. ÉNIMIE.


So, just upon twelve months later, I once more found myself climbing to
the summit of the lofty plateau between Mende and St. Énimie.

It was a fortnight earlier in the year, and the weather was perfect;
light clouds that had threatened rain cleared off, mild sunshine
brightened the scene, and the air, although brisk and invigorating, was
by no means cold. Still more enticing now looked the billowy swell of
gold and purple mountains, and the dark cliffs frowning over green
valleys. To-day, too, the exhilarating conviction of fulfilment was
added to that of looking forward. A second time I had reached the
threshold of the long-dreamed-of region of marvels, at last really to
cross it and enter in.

I was on my way to the Causses at last! More striking and beautiful
than when first seen now seemed the upward drive from Mende--the
beautiful gray cathedral cushioned against the soft green hills, the
cheerful little town in its fertile valley, its wild entourage of
far-stretching waste and barren peak. More musical still sounded in my
ears the purling of the Lot, as unseen it ran between sunny pastures
over its stony bed far below.

Little I thought, indeed, although of firm intention, when making the
journey so far twelve months all but two weeks ago, that on this 5th of
September, 1888, I should be gazing on the same scene--a scene
reminding me now, as then, of the vast reedy plateau gazed on at Saïda,
dividing the Algerian traveller from the Sahara.

This time I did not stop to make tea gipsy-wise on the turf in front of
the farmhouse; nor, to my disappointment, did the children run out to
share the contents of my bonbon-box. Not a soul was abroad; an eldritch
solitude reigned everywhere.

The Causse of Sauveterre is not reached till we have left the farmhouse
and ruined château far behind. From that point the roads diverge, and
we see our own leading to St. Énimie wind like a ribbon till lost to
view in the gray, stony wilderness.

A considerable portion of the land hereabouts is cultivated. We see
little patches of rye, oats, Indian corn, clover, potatoes, and here
and there a peasant ploughing up the soil with oxen.

As we proceed, the enormous horizon ever widens; long shadows fleck the
purply-brown and orange-coloured undulations; scattered sparsely are
little flocks of sheep, of a rich burnt-umber-brown, but herbage is
scant and little cattle can be nourished here. The swelling hills now
show new and more grandiose outlines; at last we come in sight of the
dark mass of the Causse de Sauveterre, and soon we enter upon the true
'Caussien' landscape in all its weird and sombre grandeur. Just as when
fairly out on the open sea we realize to the full its beauty and sense
of infinity, so it is here. The farther we go the wider, more
bewilderingly vast becomes the horizon: wave upon wave, billow upon
billow, now violet-hued, with a tinge of gold; now deep brown, partly
veiled with green, or roseate with sunlit clouds--the gray monotony of
stone and waste is thus varied by the way.

By the roadside slender trees of the hornbeam tribe are planted at
intervals, and where these are wanting, tall flagstaffs take their
place, to guide the wayfarer when six feet of snow cover the ground.
Wild-flowers in plenty brighten the edges of the road--stonecrops,
cornflowers, purple 'lady's fingers,' and many others; but wedged as we
are in our not too comfortable calèche, to get out and pluck them is
impossible.

The road from Mende to the summit of the plateau can only be described
as a vertical ascent; before beginning to descend, we have a few
kilomètres of level, that is all. As we approach the village of
Sauveterre, we see one or two wild figures--shepherds, uncouth in
appearance as Greek herdsmen; poorly dressed, but robust-looking,
well-made girls and women, short-skirted, bare-headed, footing it
bravely under the now hot sun.

Portions of the land on either side consist of waste, quite recently
laid under cultivation; the huge blocks of stone have been wrenched up,
heaven knows how, and conspicuously piled up in the midst of the
newly-created field, a veritable trophy. How much more commendable than
that commemorative of blood-stained victory! The rich red earth amply
repays these Herculean labours. With regard to the tenure of land, I
should suppose the state of things here must be very much what it was
in the age of primitive man. I fancy that any native of these parts,
any true Caussenard, has only to clear a bit of waste and plant a crop
to make it his own; a stranger would doubtless have his right to do so
contested, or, maybe, some patriarchal system is still in force, and
the village community is not yet extinct in France.

'Voilà la capitale de Sauveterre!' soon cries our driver, pointing to a
cluster of bare brown, apparently windowless, houses, and a tiny
church, all grouped picturesquely together.

A poor-looking place it was enough when we obtained a nearer view,
reminding me of a Kabyle village more than anything else; not, however,
brightened with olive or fig tree! Nothing in the shape of a garden is
to be seen, only dull walls of close-set dwellings, with narrow paths
between. Windows, however, our driver assured us, were there; but the
village is built with its back to the road.

The great privation of these poor people is that of a regular
water-supply--one large, by no means pellucid, pond, with cisterns, are
all the sources they can rely upon from one end of the year to the
other; not a fountain issues from the limestone for miles round, not a
stream waters the entire Causse, a region extensive as Dartmoor or
Salisbury Plain. When we consider that this plateau has a height above
the sea-level equal to that of Skiddaw, we can easily imagine what the
long eight months' winter here is like. For the greater part of the
time the country is under several feet of snow, and the Caussenard
warms his poor tenement as best he can with peat.

It was curious to hear our conductor, himself evidently accustomed to a
hard, laborious life, speak of the inhabitants of Sauveterre. He
described their condition much as a well-to-do English artisan might
speak of the half-starved foreign victims of the sweater--so wide is
the gulf dividing the Caussenard from the French peasant proper.

'Just think of it,' he said; 'they don't even dress the rye for their
bread, but eat it made of husks and all. Rye-bread, bacon, potatoes,
that is their fare, and water: if it were only good water one would
have nothing to say--bad water they drink. But they are contented,
pardie.'

'What do they do for a doctor?' I asked.

He made a curious grimace.

'They doctor themselves till they are at the point of death, and then
send for a doctor. But it is not often. They are healthy enough,
pardie!'

With regard to the ministrations of religion, they are in the position
of dalesfolk in some parts of Dauphiné. A curé from St. Énimie, he told
us, performed Mass once a fortnight in summer, and came over as
occasion required for baptisms, marriages, and burials. In winter alike
ordinary Mass and these celebrations were stopped by the snow. The
services of the priest had then to be dispensed with for weeks, even
months, at a time.

I next tried to gain some information as to schools, but here my
informant was not very clear. Yes, he said, there was schooling in
summer; whether lay or clerical, whether the children were taught the
Catechism in their mother-tongue--in other words, the patois of the
Causse--or in French, I could not learn.

Do these wild-looking mountaineers exercise the electoral privilege? Do
they go to the poll, and what are their political views? Are their sons
drafted off, as the rest of French youth, into military service? Does a
newspaper, even the ubiquitous _Petit Journal_, penetrate into these
solitudes? It was difficult to get a satisfactory answer to all my
questions, and quite useless to make a tour of inquiry in the village.
One must speak the patois of the Caussenard to obtain his confidence,
and though the population is inoffensive, even French tourists are
advised on no account to adventure themselves in these parts without
being accompanied by a native of the country.

One thing is quite certain: The four thousand and odd wild,
sheepskin-wearing inhabitants of the entire region of the Causses must
erelong be nationalized--like the Breton and the Morvandial, undergo a
gradual and complete transformation. Travellers of another generation
on this road will not be stared at by the fierce-looking, picturesque
figures we now pass in the precincts of Sauveterre. Brigands they might
be, judging from their shaggy beards, unkempt locks, and Robinson
Crusoe-like dress; also their fixed, almost dazed, look inspires
anything but confidence. Still, we must remember that Sauveterre is in
the Lozère, and that the Lozère enjoys the enviable pre-eminence of
'white assizes'--a clean bill of moral health.

After quitting the village, which has a deserted look as of a
plague-stricken place, the road descends. We now follow the rim of a
far-stretching, tremendous ravine, its wooded sides running
perpendicularly down. For miles we drive along this giddy road, the
only protection being a stone wall not two feet high. The road,
however, is excellent, our little horses steady and sure-footed, and
our driver very careful. We are, indeed, too much interested in the
scenery to heed the frightful precipices within a few inches of our
carriage-wheels. But the retrospection makes one giddy. The least
accident or mishap, contingencies not dwelt upon whilst jogging on
delightfully under a bright sky, might, or rather must, here end in a
tragedy. Tourists should be quite sure of both driver and horses before
undertaking this drive.

By-and-by the prospect becomes inexpressibly grand, till the impression
of magnificence culminates as our road begins literally to drop down
upon St. Énimie, as yet invisible. Our journey must now be compared to
the descent from cloud-land in a balloon. Meantime, the stupendous
panorama of dark, superbly-outlined mountain-wall closes in. We seem to
have reached the limit of the world. Before us, a Titanic rampart,
rises the grand Causse Méjean, now seen for the first time; around,
fold upon fold, are the curved heights of Sauveterre, the nearer slopes
bright green with sunny patches, the remoter purply black.

It is a wondrous spectacle--wall upon wall of lofty limestone, making
what seems an impenetrable barrier, closing around us, threatening to
shut out the very heavens; at our feet an ever-narrowing mountain pass
or valley, the shelves of the rock running vertically down.

When at last from our dizzy height our driver bids us look down, we
discern the gray roofs of St. Énimie wedged between the congregated
escarpments far below, the little town lying immediately under our
feet, as the streets around St. Paul's when viewed from the dome. We
say to ourselves we can never get there. The feat of descending those
perpendicular cliffs seems impossible. It does not do to contemplate
the road we have to take, winding like a ribbon round the upright
shafts of the Causse. Follow it we must. We are high above the
inhabited world, up in cloudland; there is nothing to do but descend as
best we can; so we trust to our good driver and steady horses, obliged
to follow the sharply-winding road at walking pace. And bit by bit--how
we don't know--the horizontal zigzag is accomplished. We are down at
last!




CHAPTER IX.

ST. ÉNIMIE.


How can I describe the unimaginable picturesqueness of this little town
wedged in between the crowding hills, dropped like a pebble to the
bottom of a mountain-girt gulf?

St. Énimie has grown terrace-wise, zigzagging the steep sides of the
Causse, its quaint spire rising in the midst of rows of whitewashed
houses, with steel-gray overhanging roofs, vine-trellised balconies,
and little hanging gardens perched aloft. On all sides just outside the
town are vineyards, now golden in hue, peach-trees and almond groves,
whilst above and far around the gray walls of the Causse shut out all
but the meridian rays of the sun.

As I write this, at six o'clock on the evening of the 5th of September,
the last crimson flush of the setting sun lingers on the sombre,
grandiose Causse Méjean. All the rest of the scene, the lower ranges
around, are in a cool gray shadow: silvery the spire and roofs just
opposite my window, silvery the atmosphere of the entire picture.
Nothing can be more poetic in colour, form, and combination.

Close under my room are vegetable gardens and orchards, whilst in
harmony with the little town, and adding a still greater look of
old-worldness, are the arched walls of the old château-fort. As evening
closes in, the fascination of the scene deepens; spire and roofs,
shadowy hill and stern mountain fastness, are all outlined in pale,
silvery tones against a pure pink and opaline sky, the greenery of near
vine and peach-tree all standing out in bold relief, blotches of
greenish gold upon a dark ground. I must describe our inn, the most
rustic we had as yet met with, nevertheless to be warmly recommended on
account of the integrity and bonhomie of the people.

Somewhat magniloquently called the Hôtel St. Jean, our hostelry is an
auberge placing two tiny bedchambers and one large and presumably
general sleeping-room at the disposal of visitors. We had, as usual,
telegraphed for two of the best rooms to be had. So the two tiny
chambers were reserved for us, the only approach to them being through
the large room outside furnished with numerous beds. The tourist,
therefore, has a choice of evils--a small inner room to himself,
looking on to the town and gardens, or a bed in the large outer one
beyond, the latter arrangement offering more liberty, freedom of
ingress and egress, but less privacy. However, the rooms did well
enough. A decent bed, a table, a chair, quiet--what does the weary
traveller want beside?

Here, as at Le Vigan, we were received with a courteous friendliness
that made up for all shortcomings. The master, a charming old man, a
member of the town council (conseiller municipale), at once accompanied
me to the post-office, where the young lady post-mistress produced
letters and papers, probably the first English newspapers ever stamped
with the mark of St. Énimie. The townsfolk stared at me in the
twilight, but without offensive curiosity, I may here give a hint to
future explorers of my own sex, that it is just as well to buy one's
travelling-dress and head-gear in France. An outlandish appearance,
sure to excite observation, is thus avoided. In the meantime the common
inquiry was put to us, 'What will you have for dinner?' It really
seemed as if we only needed to ask for any imaginable dish to get it,
so rich in resources was this little larder at the world's end. The
exquisite trout of the Tarn, here called the Tar; game in abundance and
of excellent quality; a variety of fruit and vegetables-such was the
dainty fare displayed in the tiny back parlour leading out of the
kitchen. Soup in these parts, it must be confessed, is not very good.
In other respects we fared as well for our five francs per diem,
including lights and attendance, as if at some big Paris hotel paying
our twenty-five!

The fastidious are warned that certain luxuries we have learned to
regard as necessary to existence are unheard of in the Lozère. A bell,
for instance--as well expect to find a bell here as in Noah's Ark! A
very good preparation for this journey would be the perusal of Tieck's
humorous novelette called 'Life's Superfluities' (Des Lebens
Uberfluss), wherein he shows that with health, a cheerful disposition,
and sympathetic companionship, we may do without anything in the way of
an extra at all. Shelter, covering, bed--beyond these all is mere
superfluity.

Having dined, we made inquiries as to the morrow's journey on the Tarn,
and that somewhat portentous shooting of the rapids we longed for, yet
could hardly help shrinking from.

Our host soon set our minds at rest, and smiled when I suggested
discomfort and peril.

'Make your minds easy,' he said; 'I will myself answer for your safety.'

He then gave me the following printed programme of the day's excursion,
which I translate below, as it shows into what excellent hands the
stranger falls at St. Énimie. The most timid lady travellers may safely
trust themselves to these town councillors and maires of the little
villages bordering the Tarn. Not only will they be taken he very
greatest care of; not only are they perfectly secure from any form of
extortion: they make acquaintance throughout every stage of the way
with the very best type of French peasant, a class of men, as will be
shown in these pages, of whom any country might justly be proud. I have
now a fairly representative experience of the French peasant. The
dignity, sobriety, and intelligence of the Lozérien I have nowhere
found surpassed. It was a happy thought of the leading men in these
parts to organize a kind of tourist agency among themselves, thus
keeping out strangers and speculators sure to spoil the business by
overcharges. A village mayor here, a municipal councillor there, in all
about a score of the inhabitants, have formed what they call 'La
Compagnie de Batellerie St. Jean,' which ensures the traveller a fixed
tariff, good boats, and, above all, experienced boatmen, for what is
during the last stage of the way a somewhat hazardous journey. The
prospectus runs thus:


'NOTICE TO TOURISTS.

'The Hôtel St. Jean at St. Énimie places at the disposal of tourists a
service of boats between that town and Le Rozier.

'The service is divided into four stages, the entire journey without
halt occupying six hours.

'The corresponding members of the company at the four stations are as
follows:

'At St. Énimie, St. Jean, hotel proprietor and town councillor.

'At St. Chély, Bernard, town councillor.

'At La Malène, Casimir Montginoux, hotel proprietor.

'At St. Préjet, Alphonse Solanet, mayor.

'The charge for the complete transit, whether the boat numbers one
passenger or several, is forty-two francs, which may be paid to any of
the boatmen or at any stage of the journey.'

St. Énimie is what Gibbon calls 'an aged town,' its sponsor and
foundress being a Merovingian princess. For the pretty legend
concerning this musically-named maiden, I refer readers to the
guide-books, liking better to fill my pages with my own experiences
than with matter to be had for the asking elsewhere.

Had it been somewhat earlier in the year, we might perhaps have decided
to make a little stay here. But in the height of summer the heat is
torrid on the Roof of France. In winter the cold is Arctic, and there
is no autumn in the accepted sense of the word; winter might be at
hand. We were advised by those in whose interest it was that we should
remain, to lose no time and hurry on. Having bespoken the four relays
of boatmen for next day, we betook ourselves to our little rooms,
somewhat relieved by the fact that we were the only travellers, and
that the large, general bedroom adjoining our own would be therefore
untenanted. We had reckoned without our host, the comfortable beds
therein being evidently occupied by various members of the family when
the tourist season was slack. We were composing ourselves to sleep,
each in our own chamber, when we heard the old master and mistress of
the house, with some little grandchildren, steal upstairs and, quiet as
mice, betake themselves to bed. Then all was hushed for the night.

Only one sound broke the stillness. Between one and two in the morning
our driver descended from his attic. A quarter of an hour later there
was a noise of wheels, pattering hoofs, and harness bells. He had
started, as he told us was his intention, on his homeward journey,
traversing the dark, solitary Causse alone, with only his lantern to
show the way. Soon after five o'clock our old host, evidently
forgetting that he had such near neighbours, or perhaps imagining that
nothing could disturb weary travellers, began to chat with his wife,
and before six, one and all of the family party had gone downstairs. I
threw open my casement to find the witchery of last night vanished,
cold gray mist enshrouding the delicious little picture, with its
grandiose, sombre background. That clinging mist seemed of evil
bodement for our expedition. Ought we to start on a long day's river
journey in such weather? Yet could we stay?

I confess that there was something eerie in the isolation and
remoteness of St. Énimie. Compared to the savagery and desolation of
the Causses, it was a little modern Babylon--a corner of Paris, a bit
of boulevard and bustle, but with such narrow accommodation, and with
such limited means of locomotion at disposal, the prospect of a stay
here in bad weather was, to say the least of it, disconcerting. I
prepared in any case for a start, made my tea, performed my toilet, and
packed my bag as briskly as if a bright sun were shining, which true
enough it was, although we could not see!

When, soon after seven o'clock, I descended to the kitchen, I found our
first party of boatmen busily engaged over their breakfast, and all
things in readiness for departure.

'The sun is already shining on the Causse,' said our old host. 'This
mist means fine weather. Trust me, ladies, you could not have a better
day.'

We did our best to put faith in such felicitous augury. Punctually at
eight o'clock, accompanied by the entire household of the little Hôtel
St. Jean, we descended to the landing-place, two minutes' walk only
from its doors.




CHAPTER X.

THE CAÑON OF THE TARN.


Amid many cordial adieux we took our seats, the good old town
councillor having placed a well-packed basket at the bottom of the
boat. Excellent little restaurants await the traveller at the various
stations on the way, but all anxious to arrive at their journey's end
in good time will carry provisions with them.

The heavy gray mist hung about the scene for the first hour or two,
otherwise it must have been enchanting. Even the cold, monotonous
atmosphere could not destroy the grace and smilingness of the opening
stage of our journey--sweet Allegro Gracioso to be followed by stately
Andante, unimaginably captivating Capricioso to come next--climax of
the piece--the symphony closing with gentle, tender harmonies. Thus in
musical phraseology may be described the marvellous cañon or gorge of
the Tarn--like the pen of true genius, enchanting, whatever the theme.
Quiet as the scenery is at the beginning of the way, without any of the
sublimer features to awe us farther on, it is yet abounding in various
kinds of beauty. Above the pellucid, malachite-coloured river, at first
a mere narrow ribbon ever winding and winding, rise verdant banks, tiny
vineyards planted on almost vertical slopes, apple orchards, the bright
red fruit hanging over the water's edge, whilst willows and poplars
fringe the low-lying reaches, and here and there, a pastoral group,
some little Fadette keeps watch over her goats.

The mists rise at last by slow degrees. Soon high above we see the sun
gilding the limestone peaks on either side. Very gradually the heavens
clear, till at last a blue sky and warm sunshine bring out all the
enchantment of the scene.

The river winds perpetually between the bright green banks and shining
white cliffs. Occasionally we almost touch the mossy rocks of the
shore; the maiden-hair fern, the wild evening primrose, wild Michaelmas
daisy, blue pimpernel, fringed gentian, are so near we can almost
gather them, and so crystal-clear the untroubled waters, every
object--cliff, tree, and mossy stone--shows its double. We might at
times fancy ourselves but a few feet from the pebbly bottom, each stone
showing its bright clear outline. The iridescence of the rippling water
over the rainbow-coloured pebbles is very lovely.

All is intensely still, only the strident cry of the cicada, or the
tinkle of a cattle-bell, and now and then the hoarse note of some wild
bird break the stillness.

Before reaching the first stage of our journey the weather had become
glorious, and exactly suited to such an expedition. The heavens were
now of deep, warm, southern blue; brilliant sunshine lighted up
gold-green vineyard, rye-field bright as emerald, apple-orchard and
silvery parapet on either side.

But these glistening crags, rearing their heads towards the intense
blue sky, these idyllic scenes below, are only a part of what we see.
Midway between the verdant reaches of this enchanting river and its
sheeny cliffs, between which we glide so smoothly, rise stage upon
stage of beauty: now we see a dazzlingly white cascade tumbling over
stair after stair of rocky ledge; now we pass islets of greenery
perched half-way between river and limestone crest, with many a combe
or close-shut cleft bright with foliage running down to the water's
edge.

Little paths, laboriously cut about the sides of the Causses on either
side, lead to the hanging vineyards, fields and orchards, so
marvellously created on these airy heights, inaccessible fastnesses of
Nature. And again and again the spectator is reminded of the axiom:
'The magic of property turns sands to gold.' No other agency could have
effected such miracles. Below these almost vertical slopes of the
Causse, raised a few feet only above the water's edge, cabbage and
potato beds have been cultivated with equal laboriousness, the soil,
what little of soil there is, being very fertile.

On both sides we see many-tinted foliage in abundance: the shimmering
white satin-leaved aspen, the dark rich alder, the glossy walnut,
yellowing chestnut, and many others.

Few and far between are herdsmen's cottages, now perched on the rock,
now built close to the water's edge. We can see their vine-trellised
balconies and little gardens, and sometimes the pet cats run down to
the water's edge to look at us.

And all this time, from the beginning of our journey to the end, the
river winds amid the great walls of the Causses--to our left the spurs
of the Causse Méjean; to our right those of Sauveterre. We are
gradually realizing the strangeness and sublimity of these bare
limestone promontories--here columns white as alabaster--a group having
all the grandeur of mountains, yet no mountains at all, their summits
vast plateaux of steppe and wilderness, their shelving sides dipping
from cloudland and desolation into fairy-like loveliness and fertility.

St. Chély, our first stage, comes to an end in about an hour and a half
from the time of leaving St. Énimie. We now change boatmen--punters, I
should rather call them. The navigation of the Tarn consists in skilful
punting, every inch of the passage being rendered difficult by rocks
and shoals, to say nothing of the rapids.

Here our leading punter was a cheery, friendly miller--like the host of
the hotel at St. Énimie, a municipal councillor. No better specimen of
the French peasant gradually developing into the gentleman could be
found. The freedom from coarseness or vulgarity in these amateur
punters of the Tarn is indeed quite remarkable. Isolated from great
social centres and influences of the outer world as they have hitherto
been, there is yet no trace either of subservience, craftiness, or
familiarity. Their frank, manly bearing is of a piece with the
integrity and openness of their dealings with strangers.

Shrewd, chatty, kindly, the municipal councillor--Bernard by
name--showed the greatest interest in us, his easy manners never
verging on impertinence. He was much pleased to learn that I had come
all the way from England in order to describe these regions for my
country-folks, and told us of the rapidly increasing number of French
tourists.

'It is astonishing!' he said--'quite astonishing! Two or three years
ago we had a score or two of gentlemen only; then we had fifty in one
summer; now we have hundreds--ladies as well; hardly a day passes
without tourists. I have to leave the management of my mill to my son,
as I am perpetually wanted on the river at this season of the year.'

'Such an influx of strangers must surely do good in the country?' I
asked.

'Ça ne fait pas de mal' (It does no harm), was his laconic reply; but
one could see from his look of satisfaction that he highly appreciated
the pacific invasion. The plain truth of the matter is, that the Cañon
du Tarn is proving a mine of wealth to these frugal, ingenuous peasants.

How pleasant to reflect that the gold thus showered into their laps by
Nature will not be squandered on vice or folly, but carefully
husbanded, and put to the best possible uses! What the effect of a
constantly-increasing prosperity may be on future generations, no one
can predict. Certain we may be that the hard-earned savings of these
village mayors and municipal councillors will go to the purchase of
land. The process of turning sands to gold will proceed actively; more
and yet more waste will be redeemed, and made fertile.

A charming château, most beautifully placed, adorns the banks of the
river between St. Chély and La Malène; alas! untenanted, its owner
being insane. Nowhere could be imagined a lovelier holiday resort; no
savagery in the scenes around, although all is silent and solitary;
park-like bosquets and shadows around; below, long narrow glades
leading to the water's edge.

At La Malène, reached about noon, we stop for half an hour, and
breakfast under the shade. Never before did cold pigeon, hard-boiled
eggs, and water from the stream have a better flavour. Our municipal
councillor was much concerned that we had no wine, and offered us his
own bottle, which we were regretfully obliged to refuse, not being
claret-drinkers. Then, seeing that our supply of bread was somewhat
small, he cut off two huge pieces, and brought them to us in his bare
hands. This offer we gratefully accepted.

'Ah! what weather, what weather!' he said. 'You said your prayers to
good purpose this morning. This is the day for the Tarn.'

Magnificent was the day, indeed, and sorely did La Malène tempt us to a
halt. It is a little oasis of verdure and luxuriance between two arid
chasms--flake of emerald wedged in a cleft of barren rock. The hamlet
itself, like most villages of the Lozère, has a neglected appearance.
Very fair accommodation, however, is to be had at the house of the
brothers Montginoux, our boatmen for the next stage, and all
travellers, especially good walkers, should make a halt here if they
can.

For ourselves, two motives hastened departure. In the first place, we
had heard of formidable rivals in the field; in other words,
competitors for whatever rooms were to be had at our destination, Le
Rozier. Three distinguished personages, deputies of the Lozère, were
making the same journey; whether before us or behind us, we could not
exactly make out. One thing was certain: like ourselves, they were
bound for Le Rozier. This alarming piece of information, coming as it
did on the heels of our last night's experience, made us doubly anxious
to get to our journey's end and insure rooms. What if we arrived to
find the auberge full--not an available corner anywhere, except,
perhaps, in the general bedchamber left for belated waifs and strays,
such as Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson describes in his voyage with a
donkey?

Again the weather, although most favourable for to-day's excursion,
betokened change. The light fleecy clouds playing about the summits of
the Causses, on either side grew heavier in appearance. We must hasten
on. We heard, too, a pitiful story of two American ladies who had
lately made this journey in a perpetual downpour, arriving at Le Rozier
drenched to the skin, and having seen nothing. We had not crossed the
Atlantic certainly to shoot the rapids of the Tarn, but it would be
deplorable even to have come from Hastings and meet with such a fiasco.

We now took leave of our worthy miller and his companion, giving a
liberal pourboire, as I am sure all travellers will do. It must be
borne in mind that the return journey occupies the punters three or
four times the duration of the journey downstream. Each stage is an
entire day's work, therefore, for which the tariff alone is
insufficient remuneration. Our new boatmen are the brothers
Montginoux--young men, very pleasant, very intelligent, and exceedingly
skilful in their business. The elder, who stands with his face towards
us, is full of enthusiasm for the scenery, and knows the river so well
that during the greater part of the way he is able to chat to us,
pointing out every remarkable feature in the shifting scene, and giving
us a good deal of information.

Both brothers, as is the universal rule in these parts, are exceedingly
good-looking, and have that frank, dignified manner characteristic of
the French peasant at his best. Peasant, did I say? These young men
might have passed for gentlemen anywhere; they are instances of the
great social transformation taking place throughout France. 'Le paysan,
c'est l'aristocrat de l'avenir,' French people say; and true enough we
see every day sons of peasants like the late Paul Bert, enrolled in the
professional ranks, attaining not only a respectable position, but
eminence in science, literature, and art. Turn over a dictionary of
French contemporary biography--how often do these words come after a
well-known, even distinguished, name: 'Fils d'un paysan'!

The first care of our young punters was to cut willow-branches, and
spread at the bottom of the boat in order to keep our feet dry. Do what
they will, the boat is flooded from time to time, and but for this
precaution renewed at intervals, we should be in sore discomfort.

On quitting La Malène, with its fairy-like dells, hanging woods, and
lawny spaces, the third and most magnificent stage of our journey is
entered upon, the first glimpse preparing us for marvels to come.
Smiling above the narrow dark openings in the rock are vineyards of
local renown. Here and there a silvery cascade flashes in the distance;
then a narrow bend of the river brings us in sight of the frowning crag
of Planiol crowned with massive ruins, the stronghold of the sire of
Montesquieu, which under Louis XIII. arrested the progress of the
rebellious Duke de Rohan.

For let it not be supposed that these solitudes have no history. We
must go much farther back than the seigneurial crusades of the great
Richelieu, or the wholesale exterminations of Merle, the Protestant
Alva or Attila, in the religious wars of the Cévennes-farther back even
than the Roman occupation of Gaul, when we would describe the townlings
of the Causses and the banks of the Tarn. Their story is of more
ancient date than any of recorded time. The very Causses, stony, arid
wildernesses, so unpropitious to human needs, so scantily populated in
our own day, were evidently inhabited from remote antiquity. Not only
have dolmens, tumuli, and bronze implements been found hereabouts in
abundance, but also cave-dwellings and traces of the Age of Stone.
Prehistoric man was indeed more familiar with the geography of these
regions than even learned Frenchmen of to-day. When, as I have before
mentioned, in 1879 a member of the French Alpine Club asked the
well-known geographer Joanne if he could give him any information as to
the Causses and the Cañon du Tarn, his reply was the laconic:

'None whatever. Go and see.'

It would take weeks, not days, to explore these scenes from the
archæological or geological point of view. I will content myself with
describing what is in store for the tourist.

We now enter the defile or détroit, at which point grace and
bewitchingness are exchanged for sublimity and grandeur, and the
scenery of the Causses and the Tarn reach their acme. The river,
narrowed to a thread, winds in and out, forcing laborious way between
the lofty escarpments, here all but meeting, yet one might almost fancy
only yesterday rent asunder.

It is as if two worlds had been violently wrenched apart, the cloven
masses rising perpendicularly from the water's edge, in some places
confronting each other, elsewhere receding, always of stupendous
proportions. What convulsive forces of Nature brought about this
severance of vast promontories that had evidently been one? By what
marvellous agency did the river force its way between? Some cataclysmal
upheaval would seem to account for such disrupture rather than the
infinitely slow processes suggested by geological history.

Meantime, the little boat glides amid the vertical rocks--walls of
crystal spar--shutting in the river, touching as it seems the blue
heavens, peak, parapet, ramparts taking multiform hues under the
shifting clouds, now of rich amber, now dazzlingly white, now deep
purple or roseate. And every one of these lofty shafts, so majestic of
form, so varied of hue, is reflected in the transparent green water,
the reflections softening the awful grandeur of the reality. Nothing,
certes, in nature can surpass this scene; no imagination can prefigure,
no pen or pencil adequately portray it. Nor can the future fortunes of
the district vulgarize it! The Tarn, by reason of its remoteness, its
inaccessibility--and, to descend to material considerations, its
expensiveness as an excursion--can never, fortunately, become one of
the cheap peep-shows of the world.

The intense silence heightens the impressiveness of the wonderful hour,
only the gentle ripple of the water, only the shrill note of the cicada
at intervals, breaks the stillness. We seem to have quitted the
precincts of the inhabited familiar world, our way lying through the
portals of another, such as primeval myth or fairy-tale speak of,
stupendous walls of limestone, not to be scaled by the foot or measured
by the eye, hemming in our way.

This defile, so fancy pictures, was surely the work of Titans in the
age of the ancient gods; their play, their warfare, were over hundreds
of thousands of years ago: only these witnesses left to tell of their
greatness! The famous Cirque des Baumes may be described as a double
wall lined with gigantic caves and grottoes. Here it is the fantastic
and the bizarre that hold the imagination captive. Fairies, but fairies
of eld, of giant race, have surely been making merry here! One and all
have vanished; their vast sunlit caverns, opening sheer on to the
glassy water, remain intact; high above may their dwellings be seen,
airy open chambers under the edge of the cliffs, deep corridors winding
right through the wall of rock, vaulted arcades midway between base and
peak, whence a spring might be made into the cool waves below. All is
still on a colossal scale, but playful, capricious, phantasmagoric.

Nor when we alight at the Pas de Soucis are these features wanting.
Here the river, a narrow green ribbon, disappears altogether, its way
blocked with huge masses of rock, as of some mountain split into
fragments and hurled by gigantic hands from above.

The spectacle recalls the opening lines of the great Promethean drama
of the Greek poet. Truly we seem to have reached the limit of the
world, the rocky Scythia, the uninhabited desert! The bright sunshine
and balmy air hardly soften the unspeakable savagery and desolation of
the scene, fitting background for the tragedy of the fallen Fire-giver.

Dominating the whole, as if threatening to fall, adding chaos to chaos,
and filling up the vast chasm altogether, are two frowning masses of
rock, the one a monolith, the other a huge block. Confronting each
other, tottering as it seems on their thrones, we can fancy the
profound silence broken at any moment by the crashing thunder of their
fall, only that last catastrophe needed to crown the prevailing gloom
and grandeur.




CHAPTER XI.

SHOOTING THE RAPIDS.


At this point we alight, our water-way being blocked for nearly a mile.
It is a charming walk to Les Vignes: to the left we have a continuation
of the rocky chaos just described, to the right a path under the shadow
of the cliffs, every rift showing maidenhair fern and wild-flowers in
abundance, the fragrant evening primrose and lavender, the fringed
gentian. The weather is warm as in July, and of deepest blue the sky
above the glittering white peaks. Half-way we meet the rural postman,
whose presence reminds us that we are still on the verge of
civilization, eerie as is all the solitude and desolation around.

At Les Vignes we lose our pleasant, chatty, well-informed young
boatmen, the brothers Montginoux, and embark for the fourth and last
time. We have now to shoot the rapids.

A boat lay in readiness; two chairs placed for us, and willow branches
in plenty below; our baskets and bundles carefully raised so as to be
above water. In the least little detail the greatest possible attention
is thus paid to our comfort. I would suggest that if lady tourists had
the courage to imitate a certain distinguished Frenchwoman--an
explorer--and don male attire here, the shooting of the rapids would be
a more comfortable business. The boatmen cannot prevent their little
craft from being flooded from time to time, and though they scoop up
the water, skirts are apt to prove a sore incumbrance. Foot-gear and
dress should be as near water-proof as possible upon this occasion.

We were somewhat disconcerted at the sight of our first boatman, an
aged, bent, white-haired man, hardly, one could fancy, vigorous enough,
to say nothing of his skill, for the hazardous task of shooting the
rapids. He at once informed us that his name was Gall, to which the
first place is given in French guide-books. Even such a piece of
information, however, hardly reassured us.

Our misgivings were set at rest by the first glance at his companion.

'My colleague, brother of Monsieur le Maire,' said the veteran,
presenting him.

A handsome, well-made man in his early prime, with a look of
indomitable resolution, and a keen, eagle-like glance, our second
boatman would have inspired confidence under any circumstances, or in
any crisis. I could but regret that such a man should have no wider,
loftier career before him than that of steering idle tourists through
the rocks and eddies of the Tarn. Enough of character was surely here
to make up a dozen ordinary individualities. You saw at a look that
this dignified reserve hid rare qualities and capacities only awaiting
occasion to shine conspicuously forth.

How Carlyle would have delighted in the manly figure before us, from
which his simple peasant's dress could take not an iota of nobility!

This French rustic, brother of a village mayor, was endowed by Nature
beyond most, the spirit within--there could be no doubt of
that--matching an admirable physique. Of middle stature, with regular
features and limbs perfectly proportioned, every pose might have served
for a sculptor's model, whilst his behaviour to-day sufficiently
indicated his fitness for weightier responsibilities and more complex
problems. Never shall I forget the study before us during that short
journey from Les Vignes to Le Rozier. The old man Gall we could not
see, being behind; his companion stood at the other end of the boat
facing the rapids, and having his back turned towards us.

With form erect, feet firmly planted, sinews knit, every faculty under
command, he awaited the currents.

It was a soldier awaiting the enemy, the hunter his prey.

The white crests are no sooner in sight than he seizes his pole and
stands ready for the encounter.

A moment more and we are in the midst of the eddying, rushing, foaming
rapids. We seem to have been plunged from a lake of halcyon smoothness
into a storm-lashed sea. Around us the waves rise with menacing force;
now our little boat is flooded and tossed like a leaf on the turbulent
waters; every moment it seems that in spite of our brave boatman we
must be dashed against the rocks or carried away by the whirlpool!

But swift and sure he strikes out to the right and to the left, never
missing his aim, never miscalculating distances by an inch, till, like
an arrow shot by dexterous archer, the little craft reaches the calm.
Whilst, indeed, it seems tossed like a shuttlecock on the engulphing
waves, it is in reality being most skilfully piloted. The veteran at
the stern we could not see, but doubtless his skill was equally
remarkable. The two, of course, act in concert, both knowing the river
as other folks their alphabet.

To each series of currents follows a stretch of glassy water for
awhile, and we glide on deliciously. It was instructive to watch the
figure at the helm then; he laid down his pole, his limbs relaxed, and
he indulged in cigarette after cigarette, pausing to point out any
object of interest on the way.

The swirling, rushing, eddying currents once more in sight, again he
prepared himself for action, and for a few minutes the task would be
Herculean--the mental strain equally phenomenal. His keen, swift,
unerring glance never once at fault, his rapid movements almost
mechanically sure, he plied his pole, whilst lightly as a feather our
little boat danced from cascade to cascade, all but touching the huge
mossy slabs and projecting islets of rock on either side.

There was wonderful exhilaration in this little journey. We felt that
every element of danger was eliminated by the coolness and dexterity of
our conductors, yet the sense of hazard and adventuresomeness was
there! My more stout-hearted companion was a little disappointed, would
fain have had an experience nearer akin to Niagara. It is as well to
remind the traveller that these apparently playful rapids are by no
means without risk. Several are literally cascades between rocks,
hardly allowing space for the boat to pass. Here the least imprudence
or want of skill on the part of the boatman might entail the gravest
consequences. At one of the points, indeed, a party of tourists very
nearly lost their lives some years since, their boatman being
unfamiliar with the river.

The scenery changes at every turn. Just as one moment we are in
lake-like waters, smooth as a mirror, the next apparently in mid-ocean,
so we pass from sweet idyllic scenes into regions of weird sternness
and grandeur. Now we glide quietly by shady reaches and sloping hills,
alive to the very top with the tinkle of sheep-bells; now we pass under
promontories of frowning aspect, that tower two or three thousand feet
above the water's edge. The colours of the rock, under the shifting
clouds, are very beautiful, and golden, bright and velvety the little
belts and platforms of cultivated land to be counted between base and
peak. We have to crane our necks in order to catch sight of these truly
aerial fields and gardens, all artificially created, all yet again
illustrations of the axiom: 'The magic of property turns sands to gold.'

Truly marvellous is the evidence of this love of the soil in a region
so wild and intractable! High above we obtain a glimpse of some ancient
village, its scrambling roofs shining amid orchard-trees and firwoods,
or an isolated chalet of goatherd or shepherd breaks some solitude. One
ruined château crests the jagged cliffs, a real ruin among the
semblances of so many.

Again and again we fancy we can descry crumbling watch-towers,
bastions, and donjons on the banks of the Tarn, so fantastic the forms
of the Causses on either side. What a scene for a Doré!

Soon straight before us, high above the wooded heights that hem us in,
rises the Causse Noir--dark, formidable, portentous as the rock of
Istakhar keeping sentinel over the dread Hall of Eblis, or the
Loadstone Mountain of the third Calender's story, which to behold was
the mariner's doom. The Causse Noir from the Tarn is a sight not soon
forgotten. With black ribs set close about its summit, it wears rather
the appearance of a colossal castellation, an enormous fort of solid
masonry, than of any natural mass of rock.

What with this spectacle, the excitement of the rapids, the varied
landscape, the study of that statuesque figure before us, the brother
of M. le Maire, this stage of the way seemed all too short. We
regretted--but for the sake of our boatman--that there were not
twenty-five more rapids still to be passed before we reached our
destination. We regretted, too--who could help it?--that we were not
hardy pedestrians, able to clamber amid the rocks overhead, and make
that wonderful expedition on foot described by the discoverers of this
region, as the writers I have before alluded to may indeed be called.
But if the half may not always prove better than the whole in travel,
at least it is better than nothing, and the day's excursion here
described had of itself amply repaid the long journey from England.

Sorry, then, were we to come in sight of the bridge spanning the Tarn,
behind the village of Le Rozier. Just eight hours after quitting St.
Énimie we alighted for the last time, and, following our boatmen, took
a winding path that led to the village.

It was a scene of quiet, pastoral beauty that now met our eyes. The
Tarn, its sportive mood over, the portals of its magnificent gorge
closed, now flows amid sunny hills, quitting the wild Lozère for the
more placid Aveyron; immediately around us are little farmsteads,
water-mills, and gardens, whilst opposite, like a black thundercloud
threatening a summer day, the Causse Noir looms in the distance!



CHAPTER XII.

LE ROZIER.


Next morning we woke up to a delightfully wet day, the very best piece
of good fortune that can occasionally overtake the traveller. We could
write, sketch, chat with the people of the house--above all, enjoy a
brief period of entire repose. For my own part, I hail nothing so
enthusiastically in my travels as a day of unmitigated downpour. Not
the most astounding landscape, not the most novel experience, can evoke
a warmer outburst of gratitude and welcome. I suppose there are
tourists who never feel the need of rest, who, like the Flying
Dutchman, are impelled to move on perpetually, who do not want to nurse
their impressions, if I may legitimize the expression. I, for one,
cannot understand the condition of body and mind implied in such a
temperament. Were life long enough and did circumstances and seasons
permit, I should make a six weeks' halt at least between every stage of
a journey, sipping experiences as we sip exquisitely flavoured
liqueurs, and making the whole last as long as possible.

To our intense satisfaction, we had not been anticipated by those
much-dreaded deputies of the Lozère. We had a choice of rooms, although
later in the day a large contingent of tourists arrived--two or three
French families travelling in company. The hotel at Le Rozier is a
primitive, but quite lodgeable, place--open, airy, cheerful. Bells,
bolts and bars are apparently unheard of. When we remonstrated with the
patrone on the insecurity of our doors, there being no means whatever
of fastening them, she gazed at us with the greatest possible
astonishment. 'Grand Dieu!' her face said, 'is there a country under
heaven in which folks are such ruffians that no one can sleep safely in
his bed?'

'N'ayez pas peur' (Have no fear), was the reply; such a question in her
eyes was evidently the naïvest in the world.

The primitive--I am almost tempted to say ideal--condition of things
here was more strikingly illustrated a little later.

I had begged madame to give me change for a hundred-franc note; she
immediately accompanied me back to my room, unlocked a drawer, and
displayed a heap of money--notes, gold and silver.

'Good heavens, madame!' I cried, 'do you keep your money in a room
given up to strangers?'

'Il n'y a pas de danger' (There is no danger), she replied, with almost
a contemptuous toss of the head, as she took out what she wanted and
turned the key in its loosely fastened lock. Anyone with a pocket-knife
could have wrenched it off.

We begin to understand why there should be 'white assizes' in the
Lozère!

I exchanged my bedroom containing the drawer full of money, and which
was the best in the house, for a quieter one, higher up. Nothing could
be homelier than my present quarters, an attic bare as a barn, and
almost as spacious. There was a bed in it of excellent quality, a chair
and one very rickety table furnished with jug and washbasin--no more. I
believe at night the bats, to say nothing of rats and mice, were
tolerably familiar with this part of the house. The floor sadly showed
its unacquaintance with soap and scrubbing-brush, but there were
compensating advantages. I was far away from the noise and savoury
smells of the kitchen; my window opened on to a wonderful view, and
turning the bed into a sofa, I could write or read as cosily as at home.

Nor did my companion spend less happy hours below. Her room had a more
cosmopolitan appearance. The table serving as washstand stood securely
on its four legs. She had even the luxury of a table and an arm-chair.

The rain was a veritable windfall of good luck to her as well as
myself, affording leisure to paint the floral treasures culled by the
way. How those sweet sketches brightened the bare room!

There was the golden thistle, the horned poppy, the fringed gentian,
the blue pimpernel, the rare orobanche ramosa, the yellow salvia, and
pinks in profusion.

Blessed, thrice blessed, the traveller with companions whose mind to
them a kingdom is! What disenchantment to have had the glorious
experiences of the last few days followed by a spell of boredom!
Diderot says: 'Ceux qui souffrent, font souffrir les autres' (Those who
suffer make others suffer); and certainly to be in company of the bored
is to become bored one's self.

That long wet day passed like an hour. Towards sunset the rain ceased,
and at last the three deputies of the Lozère made their appearance.
They looked drier and more cheery than could be expected, although to
have shot the rapids of the Tarn in such weather was about as
mortifying a circumstance as could befall any travellers.

They displayed the true verve Gauloise in dealing with a trying
situation, smoked cigarettes, chatted with the people of the house, and
made friends with everybody.

Le Rozier is an attractive little place, and its one inn stands airily
in the village street; on the other side of the way, a little lower
down, is its rival, the Hôtel Dieudonné, which, although within a
stone's throw, is in another village and another department. Behind us
lies the Lozère, in front the Aveyron, and perched most picturesquely
on a pyramidal green hill, crowned with a fine old church tower, rises
the little Aveyronnais village of Peyreleau. Travellers have therefore
a choice of inns and of prospects, the twin townlings being both most
advantageously placed between the three Causses, and accommodation very
fair in both.

As we sauntered about in the bright sunshine following the storm,
watching the red light on the dark flanks of the Causse Noir, on which
we can now discern the feudal tower of Capluc, gathering the fringed
gentian just outside the town, interchanging friendly talk with the
cheery peasant-folk, the thought arose: What a paradise for weary brain
workers! What a perfect summer retreat! Removed from the routine of
daily life, escaped for a time from the artificiality of ordinary
travel, how happy were the lover of nature, of pastoral existence, of
quietude in such a spot! No whistle of railway, no bustle of streets,
only the placid rippling of the Tarn and the wind gently swaying the
pine-trees.

Alas! I was soon to undergo the cruellest disillusion.

'There are now three religions in these parts,' said our host to us:
'the Catholic religion, the Protestant religion, and the religion of
the Salvation Army.'

He then added, much as if such a piece of news could but give us the
liveliest satisfaction:

'Not so very long ago Booth was here himself!'

The Salvation Army on the very Roof of France! That solitude of
solitude invaded by fife and drum; the wastes of Sauveterre echoing the
hackneyed air, 'Hold the Fort;' Hallelujah lasses in hideous
poke-bonnets parading the picturesque streets of St. Énimie; the very
rapids silenced by the stentorian exordiums of these Salvationist
orators! Could any disenchantment be more complete?

Now, whilst accrediting every member of the Salvation Army with the
best possible intentions, I quite approve of the severe measures taken
in so many English towns, and also in some places abroad, against one
of the most tremendous social nuisances that ever afflicted humanity.
Doubtless these good people, whether Protestants or Catholics of Le
Rozier and Peyreleau, follow their religion in all sincerity; for
Heaven's sake, then, let us leave our neighbours' creeds and spiritual
concerns alone. In a community in which assizes, not once only, but
often, are found to be unnecessary, there being no criminals to try,
General Booth and his noisy followers are surely out of place. In the
face of such results as these, the religion of the people must be
pronounced adequate to their needs.

Let the Salvationist chiefs occupy themselves instead with mastering
the principles of Spinoza's 'Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,' Colenso's
'Pentateuch,' and, thrown into the bargain, Sir G. B. Airey's essay on
'The Earlier Hebrew Scriptures.'

One piece of information, however, in no small degree consoled me for
that terrible nightmare of the Salvation Army on the banks of the Tarn.

'There are three religions in these parts, but one political belief
only,' added our host. 'Everybody in the department of Lozère is a
stanch Republican,' and a conclusion, novel to many minds, may be drawn
from this fact also. The Republic is not the demoralizing force some
would have it believed. An entire department may show a clean bill of
moral health when the assizes come round, and yet be ardently devoted
to a democratic form of government!

Whilst Le Rozier is a prosperous, well-to-do little place, its twin
village Peyreleau has a woefully forlorn and neglected appearance. If a
French Chadwick or Richardson would preach the gospel of sanitation
there, and, by force of precept and example, teach the people how to
sweeten their streets and make wholesome their dwellings, I for one
would wish God-speed to the undertaking. Perhaps over-much of devotion
has made these village-folks neglectful of health and comfort. Let us
by all means give them instead a dose of positive philosophy. Certain
amateur political economists would straightway set down the
unsightliness of this remote spot to peasant property, whereas I shall
show that the causes are to be sought elsewhere.

The detesters of peasant property, single-minded persons who love the
land so well that they cannot support the notion of a neighbour
possessing so much as an inch, remind me of certain French folks,
determined antagonists, they hardly know why, of the Republic. These
worthy people--the only thing that can be said against them is that
they have come into the world a hundred years too late--impute every
conceivable mishap or calamity, public or private, to the fact of
having a Republican form of government. They entertain but lukewarm
feelings for any other; they are adherents of neither the Bonapartist
nor Orleanist pretenders, nor do they care a straw for the charlatan
hero of the crutch and blue spectacles: their only political dogma is a
dislike to the Republic.

So, if a landslip occurs and an express train runs off the line with
disastrous results, they immediately cry, 'Is M. Carnot out of his
senses?' If there is an inundation of the Loire and the riverside
villages are under water, they lift up their hands, exclaiming: 'What
can be expected under such a Government as ours?' When cholera breaks
out at Toulon, or the phylloxera makes further inroads in the Côte
d'Or, or murrain appears among sheep, they protest that nothing in the
shape of bad news astonishes them. The only wonder is that, under a
Republic, honest folks keep their heads on their shoulders!

On a par with this is the reasoning of the would-be political
economists alluded to. If a French peasant is lazy, it is because he
has no rent to pay; if a French peasant works too hard, it is because
he owns a bit of land. If a cottage is untidy, it is because its
occupants are not farm labourers in receipt of ten shillings a week; in
fact, the possession of land--except in the hands of English
squires--is the most impoverishing, demoralizing, satanic force
imaginable, and the only way of turning modern France into a Utopia
would be to clap every peasant proprietor alive into nice comfortable,
well-conducted workhouses, after the English model.

Now, in the first place, peasant proprietors in many parts of France,
as I have shown elsewhere, enjoy not only the comforts, but also the
luxuries, of their neighbours of the towns; and in the second, the
untidiness, excessive thrift, and even squalor, occasionally found in
out-of-the-way places, are to be attributed to quite other causes than
that of having no rent to pay. Tidiness, seemliness, order, are taught,
like everything else, by example, and from one cause and another this
example has not been widely set the French peasant.

The matter is one requiring much more space than can be devoted to it
here. I would only observe that the life of French country gentlemen is
often simple to homeliness, and that their poorer neighbours have few
practical illustrations of the value of comfort and hygiene. I have
been astonished to find in the houses of rich landed proprietors in
Anjou and Berri, brick-floored bedrooms, carpetless salons, déjeûner
served on the bare table, and servants in waiting with their
unstockinged feet thrust in sabots.

This condition of things is slowly changing, but there is another and
yet more formidable obstacle to the progress of ideas in isolated rural
districts. I now allude to the celibate clergy. There are doubtless
many estimable parish priests in France, but how can these worthy men
revolutionize the homes of the peasant? Their own is often hardly more
comfortable or hygienic. If feminine influence presides over a priestly
household in the country, it is generally of the homeliest kind. The
mother, sister, housekeeper of a village abbé belongs in all
probability, like himself, to the peasant class, and, unlike himself,
gets no glimpse from time to time of a more polished society and
cosmopolitan ways. Let the clergy marry in France, laicize all schools,
alike for rich and poor, and what may be called the æsthetic side of
domestic economy, to say nothing of hygiene, would soon spread to the
remotest corners of the country. Will it be believed, at Nant, in that
conventual establishment I have before described, there was absolutely
no lavatory for the children at all? They were just taken to a fountain
in the courtyard, there to be washed after the manner of little
Bedouins.

There is also another cause which in part accounts for the ofttimes
squalid and unsanitary condition of the peasant's home. Educated
Frenchwomen as a rule have little love of the country, and convent-bred
Frenchwomen have still less sympathy with their humbler neighbours in
rural districts, whose Republican convictions are well known. Thus it
comes about that, generally speaking, the housekeeping sex of different
ranks remains apart. And as the well-to-do peasant regards domestic
service in the light of degradation, his daughters in turn may become
heads of houses without ever having once been inside a home conducted
on modern principles. One word more: ill-kept, ofttimes squalid as is
the house of the French peasant owner, he can say with Touchstone, 'Tis
a poor thing, but 'tis my own.' The son of the soil in France may want
carpets, wardrobes, clean swept hearths: he at least owns a home from
which only imprudence or thriftlessness can eject him.




CHAPTER XIII.

MONTPELLIER-LE-VIEUX.


After a day of gloom and downpour the weather became again perfect--no
burning sun, no cold wind; instead, we had a pearly heaven with
shifting sunlight and cloud, and the softest air.

The carriage-roads of the Lozère are a good preparation for ascending
Mont Blanc or the Eiffel Tower.

Here we seem to be perpetually going up or coming down in a balloon;
and to persons afflicted with giddiness, each day's excursion, however
delightful, takes the form of a nightmare when one's head rests on the
pillow. For days, nay, weeks after these drives on the Roof of France,
my sleep was haunted with giddy climbs and still giddier descents. It
was the price I had to pay for some of the most glowing experiences of
my much-travelled life. The journey to Montpellier-le-Vieux formed no
exception to the rule. Happy, thrice happy, those who can foot it
merrily all the way!

The pedestrian has by far the easier task. Throughout the two hours'
drive thither, and the somewhat shorter journey back, the horses have
to crawl at a snail's pace, their hoofs being within an inch or two of
the steep incline as the sharp curves of the corkscrew road are turned.
The way in many places is very rough and encumbered with stones; and
there is a good deal of clambering to be done at the last. Let none but
robust travellers therefore undertake this expedition, whether by
carriage or on foot.

Our landlord drove us, much to our satisfaction; his horses, steadiest
of the steady, his little dog--a distant cousin to my own pet at
home--trotting beside us, sniffing the air joyously, as if he too were
a tourist in search of exhilaration and adventure.

Over against Le Rozier, towering high above Peyreleau, its twin
village, rises a sharp pyramidal spur of the Causse Noir, its shelving
sides running vertically down. That mountain wall, impracticable as it
seems, we have to scale.

The road cut so marvellously round it is excellent, wild lavender
scenting the way. As we wind slowly upwards we see an old, bent woman
filling a sack with the flowery spikes for sale. Thus the Causse, not
in one sense but many, is the bread-winner of the people. We follow
this zig-zag path westward, leaving behind us sunny slopes covered with
peach-trees, vineyards, gardens and orchards, till flourishing little
Le Rozier and its neglected step-sister, Peyreleau, are hidden deep
below, dropped, as it seems, into the depths of a gulf.

An hour's climb and we are on the plateau, where the good road is
quitted, and we take a mere cart-track between pastures, rye-fields,
and woods of Scotch fir. So uneven and blocked with stones is the way
here, that the poorest walker will soon be glad to get down. The
deliciousness of the air, and the freshness of the scenery, however,
soon make us insensible to bodily fatigue. Every minute we obtain wider
and grander horizons, the three Causses being now in view, their
distant sides shining like gigantic walls of crystal; deep blue shadows
here and there indicating the verdant clefts and valleys we know of.
All lightness and glitter are the remoter surfaces; all warm colour and
depth of tone the nearer undulations. What a wealth of colour! what
incomparable effects for an artist!

The prospect now increases in wildness, and we seem gradually to leave
behind the familiar world. We are again in the midst of a stony
wilderness, but a wilderness transformed into a fairy region of beauty
and charm.

Nothing can be softer, more harmonious, more delicate than the soft
gray tints of the limestone against the pure heaven; every bit of rock
tapestried with the yellowing box-leaf, or made more silvery still with
the flowers of the wild lavender.

East, west, north, south, the lines of billowy curves in the far
distance grow vaster, till we come in sight of what seems indeed a
colossal city towering westward over the horizon; a city well built,
girt round with battlements, bristling with watch-towers, outlined in
gold and amethyst upon a faint azure sky.

It is our first glimpse of Montpellier-le-Vieux.

The jolting now becomes excessive; we leave our carriage, conductor and
little dog to follow a traverse leading to Maubert, the farmhouse and
auberge where are to be had guides, food, and bedchambers for those who
want them.

We could not miss the way, our driver said, and woe betide us if we
did! We seem already to have found the city of rocks, the famous Cité
du Diable; so labyrinthine these streets, alleys, and _impasses_ of
natural stone, so bewildering the chaos around us. For my own part, I
could not discern the vestige of a path, but my more keen-eyed
companion assured me that we were on the right track, and her assertion
proved to be correct. After a laborious picking of our way amid the
pêle-mêle of jumbled stones, we did at last, and to our great joy,
catch sight of a bit of wall. This was Maubert; a square, straggling
congeries of buildings approached from behind, and of no inviting
aspect. A dunghill stood in front of the house, and hens, pigs, and the
friendliest dogs in the world disported themselves where the
flower-garden ought to have been. At first the place seemed altogether
deserted. We knocked, shouted, ran hither and thither in vain.
By-and-by crawled forth, one after the other, three ancient, hag-like
women, staring at us and mumbling words we could not understand. On
nearer inspection they seemed worthy old souls enough, evidently
members of the household; but as their amount of French was scant, they
hurried indoors again. A few minutes later a young, handsome, untidy
woman popped her head from an upper window, and seeing that we were
tourists, immediately came downstairs to welcome us.

She would send for her husband to act as guide at once, she said; in
the meantime, would we breakfast?

I am sorry to confess that this young mistress of the house--a bride,
moreover, of three months--did poor credit to the gifts Nature had
lavished upon her. Very bright, good-looking, amiable and intelligent
she was, but sadly neglectful of her personal appearance, with locks
unkempt and dress slatternly--a strange contrast to the neat, clean,
tidy peasant-women we had seen elsewhere on our journey.

The farmhouse, turned into a hostelry, only required a little outlay
and cosmopolitan experience to be transformed into quite a captivating
health resort. If, indeed, health is not to be recruited on these vast,
flower-scented heights, nearly three thousand feet above the sea-level,
swept clean by the pure air of half a dozen mountain chains, where may
we hope to find invigoration?

Even now non-fastidious tourists may be fairly comfortable. A large,
perfectly wholesome upper dining-room; bedrooms containing excellent
beds; a farmhouse ordinary with game in abundance; courteous, honest
hosts, and one of the marvels of the natural world within a
stroll--surely scores of worn-out brain-workers would regard Maubert as
a paradise, in spite of trifling drawbacks.

We found a pleasant young French tourist with his blue-bloused guide
eating omelettes in the salle-à-manger. Soon the master of the house
came up--a young man of perhaps twenty-five--as well favoured as his
wife, and much neater in appearance. This youthful head of the family
possesses a large tract of Causse land, besides owning in great part
what may prove in the future--is, indeed, already proving--a mine of
wealth, an El Dorado, namely, the city of rocks, Montpellier-le-Vieux.

We now set out, our host, whilst quite ready to chat, possessing all
the dignity and reserve of the Lozérien mountaineer. As we sauntered
through patches of oats, rye, potatoes, and hay, I obtained a good deal
of information about rural affairs.

'As near as you can guess, how large is the size of your property?' I
asked.

I had learned by experience that the precise acreage of these highland
farms is seldom to be arrived at, the size of a holding in the Lozère
and the Cantal often being computed by the heads of stock kept.

He informed me that he owned four hundred hectares, that is to say,
nearly a thousand acres, a considerable portion of which consisted of
rocky waste or scant pasturage. He employed several labourers,
possessed a flock of several hundred sheep, six oxen for ploughing,
besides pigs and poultry.

Here, as elsewhere throughout France, all kinds of land tenure are
found. Thus we find land let or owned in holdings from two and a half
to a thousand hectares, some of the tenant farmers hereabouts paying a
rental of several hundred pounds a year. Roquefort cheese is the most
important production, and sheep are always housed like other cattle in
winter. Here is a hint for Welsh farmers!

'Have you any neighbours?' I asked.

'Oh, yes!' he replied, 'farmers here and there. And we have a postal
delivery every day in summer; when winter comes we get letters as we
can. I take a newspaper, too. It is not so out of the way a place as it
seems. But a church! Ah, church-going is impossible; the nearest is too
far off.' He added: 'This influx of tourists is changing everything. I
never saw anything like it. My uncle, who acts as guide here, is always
occupied now, and I am so much in request as guide too during the
summer season, that I think of letting my farm and giving myself wholly
up to the business of hotel-keeper. I should keep mules for tourists,
horses and carriages, improve the roads, and furnish my house better.
There is to be a model of Montpellier-le-Vieux at the grand exhibition
in Paris next year; that will make people come here more than ever. I
have almost decided to do as I say.'

I thought to myself that the model of a house constructed on strictly
scientific principles should be exhibited also. Nothing were easier
than the proposed transformation; but it is less money and enterprise
that are needed than knowledge of the world and its ways. I wished that
I could invite this intelligent, well-mannered young peasant and his
handsome, sprightly wife to England, in order to show them how much
more besides good food and good beds are summed up in our oft-quoted
'le confort.'




CHAPTER XIV.

MONTPELLIER-LE-VIEUX (_continued_).


Chatting thus pleasantly, we come nearer and nearer the city, painted
in violet tints against an azure sky, to find it, as we approach, a
splendid phantasmagoria. What we deemed citadels, domes and parapets,
prove to be the silvery dolomite only: limestone rock thrown into every
conceivable form, the imposing masses blocking the horizon; the shadow
of a mighty Babylon darkening the heaven; but a Babylon untenanted from
its earliest beginning--a phantom capital, an eldritch city, whose
streets now for the first time echo with the sound of human voice and
tread.

I can think of but one pen that could aptly describe the scene: the pen
of a Shelley dipped in iridescence and gold; of a poet whose inner eye
could conjure up visions of loveliness and enchantment invisible to the
rest of mortal born. I do not know how Montpellier-le-Vieux would look
on a dull, gray day; doubtless imagination would people it then with
gnomes, horrid afrits, and shapes of fear. To-day, under an exquisite
sky, pearly clouds floating across the blue, a soft southern air
wafting the fragrance of wild pink, thyme and lavender, it was a region
surely peopled by good genii, sportive elves and beneficent fairies
only. We were in a spirit, a phantasmal world; but a world of witchery
and gracious poetic thrall only.

But as yet we are on the threshold, and, like other magic regions, the
Cité du Diable unfolds its marvels all at once, as soon as the novice
has entered within its precincts. Before us rose the colossal citadel
so-called, pyramid upon pyramid of rock, which our guide said we must
positively climb, the grandest panorama being here obtained; a bit of a
scramble, he added, but a mere bagatelle--the affair of a few minutes
only.

I hesitated. We were at the foot of a chaotic wall of enormous blocks,
piled one upon the other, with deep, ugly fissures between--the height,
from base to summit, that of St. Paul's Cathedral. In order to reach
even the lower platform of these superimposed masses it was necessary
to be hoisted up after the manner of travellers ascending the Pyramids,
only with this disadvantage--that holding on to the rocks where any
hold was possible, and planting the feet as firmly as was practicable
on the almost vertical sides, we had here to bestride chasm after chasm.

'Don't be afraid,' cried our guide. 'It is nothing.'

'I would venture if I were you,' urged my friend mildly. So up I went.

The climbing, beyond a somewhat breathless scrambling and painful
straining of the limbs, was nothing to speak of. For a few moments I
could revel in the marvellous spectacle before me.

Lying on a little platform, perhaps two yards square, high above the
bright heavens, I had, far around and beneath, the wide panorama of the
dolomite city, vista upon vista of tower and monolith, avenues, arches,
bridges, arcades, all of cool, tender gray, amid fairy-like verdure and
greenery. Not Lyons itself, seen from the heights of La Fourvière,
shows a more grandiose aspect than this capital of the waste, unpeopled
by either the living or the dead!

Hardly had I realized the magic of the prospect when I became conscious
of frightful giddiness. The flowery shelf of rock on which I lay was
only a foot or two removed from the edge of the piled mass just climbed
so laboriously, and, sloping downwards, seemed to invite a fall. From
this side the incline was almost vertical, and the turf below at a
distance of over a hundred feet. No descent was practicable except by
bestriding the same fissures, two feet wide, and clinging to the sides
of the rocks, as before. I now felt that terrible vertigo which I am
convinced accounts for so many so-called suicides from lofty heights.
To throw myself down seemed the only possible relief from the terrible
nightmare. Had I been longer alone I must, at least, have allowed
myself to slip off my resting-place, with certain risk to life and
limb. As it was, I called to my companion, who had scaled another
story--had, indeed, reached the topmost shelf of the citadel; and she
tripped down looking so airy and alert that I felt ashamed of my own
weakness.

Pale and trembling, I pointed to the horrible staircase by which we had
come.

'Get me down some other way,' I said to the guide, who now followed,
not slightly embarrassed. Had he possessed the physique of our punter
of the rapids, or of our conductor, now attending to his horses at the
farm, he could have shouldered me like a baby. But he was slight of
build and by no means robust. Not a creature was within call, and those
dreaded fissures had to be bestridden. There was no other means of
descent.

'It is of no use to try, I cannot get down,' I repeated, and for a
moment a sombre vision of broken limbs and a long incarceration at the
farm passed before my mind's eye.

Reassuring me as best he could, our poor guide now grasped one of my
hands, with the other got a strong grip of the rock, and the first
dreaded step was achieved. The second presented greater difficulties
still. Once more he tried to carry me, but found the task beyond his
strength. I remembered that he was a bridegroom of a few months only;
what would be the young wife's feelings if he now came by mishap? So I
closed my eyes, shutting out the prospect beneath, and allowed myself
to be dragged down somehow, never more to venture on such giddy
heights. The incomparable view had been too dearly purchased.

The moral of this incident is, let tourists subject to vertigo carry a
smelling-bottle with them, or, better still, stay below.

All had ended well, however, and I could once more enjoy the scene.
When the first bewilderment of wonder and admiration is over; when the
fantastic city no longer appears a vision, but a reality, pile upon
pile of natural rock so magically cast in the form of architecture, we
realize countless beauties unperceived at first. The intense limpidity
and crystalline clearness of the atmosphere, the brilliance of the
limestone, the no less dazzling hue of the foliage everywhere adorning
it, the beautiful lights and shadows of the more distant masses, line
upon line of far off mountain-chain, mere gold and violet clouds rising
above the rugged outline of the Causses, the deep, rich tones of the
nearer--these general effects are not more striking than the details
close under our feet. About every fragment of rock is a wealth of
leaves, flowers and berries, the dogwood and bilberry with their
crimson and purple clusters and tufts, wild lavender and thrift, whilst
the ground is carpeted with the leaf of the hepatica.

We found also the pretty purple and white toad-flax, [Footnote: Linaria
versicolor] the handsome gold-flowered spurges, [Footnote: Euphorbia
sylvatica and E. cyparissea] the elegant orange and crimson-streaked
salvia, [Footnote: Salvia glutinosa] with others more familiar to us.
If the adorer of wild flowers is a happy person here in September, what
enchantment would await him in the spring!

Like the Russian Steppes and the African Metidja, these wastes are a
mosaic of blossoms. The foot-sure, hardy and leisurely traveller must
not content himself with the bird's-eye view of this dolomite city just
described. He should spend hours, nay, days here, if he would
conscientiously explore the stone avenues, worthy to be compared to
Stonehenge or Carnac; the amphitheatre, vast as that of Nîmes or
Orange; the fortifications, with bulwarks, towers, and ramparts; the
necropolis, veritable Cerameicus, or Père-la-Chaise; the citadel, the
forum, the suburbs; for the enthusiastic discoverers of
Montpellier-le-Vieux, or the Cité du Diable, have made out all these.

The most striking rocks have been fancifully named after the celebrated
structures they resemble. We find the Château Gaillard, the Sphinx, the
Gate of Mycenæ, or of the Lions, the Street of Tombs supposed to
resemble Pompeii, some of colossal dimensions. Thus the citadel
measures a hundred and fifty feet from the ground, at this point
Montpellier-le-Vieux attaining an altitude of two thousand five hundred
feet above the sea-level. When I add that the Cité du Diable measures
nearly two miles in length and a mile in breadth, and that its city and
suburbs, so-called, cover a thousand hectares, an area a third less
than that of Windsor Forest, the enterprising tourist will have some
feeble notion of the waste before him. The place is indeed altogether
indescribable--surely one of the most striking testimonies to the force
of erosion existing on the earth's surface. The explanation of the
phenomenon is found here. At a remote period of geological history the
action of mighty torrents let loose sculptured these fantastic and
grandiose monoliths, bored these arcades and galleries, hollowed these
fairy-like caves. Erosion has been the architect of the Cité du Diable,
partly by impetuous floods, partly by slow filtration. Water has
gradually, and in the slow process of ages, built up the whole, then
vanished altogether. Nothing strikes the imagination more than the
absolute aridity of the region now. Not a drop left in the bed of
ancient lake or river, not a crystal thread trickling down the rock
channelled by ancient cascades, and nevertheless abundance of greenery
and luxuriant foliage everywhere! The waterless world of stone is not
only a garden, but a green forest! Immediately around us flowers,
ferns, and shrubs adorn every bit of silvery gray rock, whilst wherever
space admits we see noble trees, pines, oaks, beeches, some of
marvellous growth, yet perched on heights so remote and lofty as to
appear mere tufts of grass.

And then the wonderful deliciousness and invigorating quality of the
air! It is like tasting the waters of the Nile, an experience never to
be forgotten.

Those, indeed, who have once breathed the air of the Lozère will have
only one desire: to breathe it again.

True, Montpellier-le-Vieux, departmentally speaking, is in the Aveyron,
if so phantom-like a city can be said to have a local habitation and a
name. But the Lozère chain is still in sight; its breezes are wafted to
us; we seem still in my favourite department of the eighty-seven, that
now being the proper number, including the newly-created one of the
Territoire de Belfort. I note the fact, as so many errors find their
way into print on the subject of French geography. As we reflect on the
mine of wealth this newly-discovered marvel may, we should say must,
inevitably become to its owners and their near neighbours, a terrible
vision rises before the mind. The gradually-diminishing area of the
picturesque world, in proportion to the enormously-increasing
percentage of tourists, can have but one ultimate result. In process of
time the dolomite city must undergo the fate of other marvels of the
natural world. Waggonettes drawn by four horses will convey the curious
from the Grand Hotel and Hotel Splendide at Le Rozier to the Cité du
Diable. Who can tell? A steam tramway may be placed at the disposal of
globe-trotters sleeping at Maubert, and a patent lift or captive
balloon for the ascension of the citadel. But no! We may at least
console ourselves with the reflexion that such a contingency is far
off. It will take more than a generation or two to vulgarize the Cité
du Diable, which in our days may be considered as remote from London as
Bagdad. The ideas of tourists in general must undergo entire
transformation ere they will cease to endorse Shelley's opinion: 'There
is nothing to see in France.'

Perhaps these pages may tempt a stray sketcher or lover of wild flowers
to follow my route, but the peasant-owner of Montpellier-le-Vieux,
although reaping a fair harvest from his unique possession, will not
certainly become a millionaire through the patronage of Messrs. Cook,
Gaze and Caygill. And, truth to tell, it is not even every ardent lover
of natural beauty who would be held captive here. It requires a
peculiar temperament to appreciate this gray, silent, fantastic world
of stone. When once within its precincts, our mood is not precisely
that of delight or exhilaration; it is more akin to the eerie and the
awesome. We are spellbound, not so much by the sublimity or loveliness
of the place, but by its absolute uniqueness, its total unlikeness to
any other on the face of the globe, its kinship with the few
incomparable marvels Nature has given us; creations of her mysterious,
freakish, dæmonic humour. Strange that a neighbourhood so weird should
have exercised only a wholesome influence on the character of the
people! As far as we can judge, no franker, cheerier, more
straightforward folks are to be found in France, to say nothing of that
little fact of white assizes, so creditable to the department.

Perhaps the fine prospect framing in Montpellier-le-Vieux is best
appreciated as we walk back to the farm, the mind not then being full
of expectancy. What a superb coup d'œil! Distance upon distance, one
mountain range rising above another, almost in endless succession, the
various stages showing infinite gradation of colour--subtle,
distracting, absolutely unpaintable! No wonder the air is unspeakably
fresh and exhilarating, seeing that it blows north, south, east and
west from lofty Alps. We have in view the sombre walls of the three
Causses, the wide outline of the Larzac, in a vast semicircle the
western spurs of the Cévennes, whilst from east to west stretch the
Cantal chain, the Lozère, and the Cévennes des Gardons. [Footnote: So
called from this portion of the Cévennes rising above the valleys of
the streams and rivers Gardon.]

We are on the Roof of France indeed! Having escaped a broken leg or
dislocated shoulder, my only regret was that we could not spend at
least a month within reach of the Cité du Diable. What explorations in
search of rare flowers! what sunset effects! what impressions to be
obtained here! How delightful, too, to make friends with the young
owners of this strange property--the strangest surely out of the
'Arabian Nights,' 'Vathek,' or 'The Epicurean!'--and get the farmhouse
turned into quite an ideal hostelry! I saw in my mind's eye the
dunghill replaced by a pretty flower-garden, a tablecloth spread for
breakfast, the floors swept and scoured, carpets and armchairs in the
best bedrooms, and even--my ambition went so far--trays, bells, and
door-fastenings introduced into these wilds. As the Utopia could not be
realized this year, I chatted with our hosts upon 'le confort,' whilst
they brought out one liqueur after another--rum, quince-water, heaven
knows what!--with which to restore us after our fatigues. Whilst I
conversed on this instructive topic: 'Yes,' said the handsome,
slatternly little mistress of the Cité du Diable, turning to her
husband, 'we must buy some hand-basins, my dear.'

We had not noticed the fact that the six bedchambers at Maubert were
altogether unprovided with these luxuries, for luxuries they must be
called in a region where there is absolutely nothing whatever to render
them necessary. Without smoke, fog, artificial or atmospheric
impurities of any kind, one might surely remain here in a condition of
ideal cleanliness from January to December.

Invigorated by the various petits verres of home-made cordials this
hospitable young couple had pressed upon us, we now set off jauntily
for Le Rozier. My companion, with a courage and endurance I could but
envy, mounted the calèche; I followed close behind on foot with the
little dog.

It was amusing to watch the imperturbability of our conductor as the
somewhat antiquated vehicle swayed this side and that, at every moment,
as it seemed, in jeopardy of overthrow. For a mile and a half from the
farm the road, or, rather, cart-track, may be described as a kind of
steeplechase on wheels, every step of the way showing either a
stone-heap or a ditch, the word 'rut' being quite an inadequate
definition. Now I saw the hood of the carriage nod to the right, now to
the left, as some stone-heap impeded the way; now it curtseyed forward,
almost disappearing altogether as some gully was plunged into, horses,
driver, and vehicle, wonderful to relate, emerging as if nothing
unusual had happened, my companion sitting bolt upright and coolly
enjoying the view.

All this time it was instructive to watch the behaviour of the little
dog. Whenever I lingered behind to gather a flower or gaze around, the
intelligent little creature stopped too and waited for me, with a look
that plainly said, 'You must not be left behind, you know.' Nothing
would induce him to rejoin his master till I had caught him up.

The drive back to Le Rozier is another balloon descent from the clouds.
Like St. Énimie, the little town lies, figuratively speaking, at the
bottom of a well, and as we approach we could almost drop a
plummet-line on to the house-tops. It is a dizzy drive, and many will
shut their eyes as their horses' hoofs turn the sharp curves of the
precipitous mountain-sides, only an inch or two between wheel and
precipice.

And here is a caution to the adventuresome. During our stay a
family-party set off on mule-back from Maubert to Peyreleau somewhat
late in the day. Darkness and rain overtaking them, they were obliged
to take shelter for the night in a peasant's cottage, thankful enough
to obtain even such rough hospitality.

Let no one undertake an expedition in these regions without proper
information and the support of accredited guides--men well known and
well-recommended by residents on the spot.




CHAPTER XV.

LE ROZIER TO MILLAU AND RODEZ.


The road between Le Rozier and Millau is delightful; the verdure and
brilliance of the valley in striking contrast with the sombre,
dark-ribbed Causse Noir frowning above. For two-thirds of the way we
follow the Tarn as it winds--here a placid stream--amid poplars,
willows, and smooth green reaches. Gracious and lovely the shifting
scenes of the landscape around, stern and magnificent of aspect the
Causse, its ramparts as of iron girding it round, its gloomy
escarpments showing deep clefts and combes, lines of purply gold and
green breaking the gray surface.

Close under this mighty shadow--a bit of fairyland by the dwelling of
evil genii--are sunny little lawns, peach-groves, orchards, and
terraced gardens overlooking the river; beyond, fertile fields, and
here and there, perched on the crags, some quaint village or ruined
château. The road is bordered for the most part with walnut-trees,
affording rich foliage and delicious shadow. The colours of every
feature in the scene--luxuriant belt of field and garden, blue hills
and sky--have a southern warmth and brilliance.

Growing close to road and river are apple-trees laden with ruddy fruit.
In England such crops would be pillaged in a day. Among peasant
proprietors, each respects the possession of his neighbour. This fact
and one or two others impressed my companion much. It was her first
acquaintance with rural France, and she had undertaken the journey
purely as a lover of nature and art, not at all as a student of
political economy, agriculture, or statistics. Peasant property was no
more in her way than the Impressionist school of modern art in mine.
But being keenly observant, and feeling, as any other member of the
propertied class must do, aghast at the condition of rural affairs in
England--vast tracts of cultivated land deteriorating into waste,
agricultural wages lowered to nine shillings a week, vagrancy on the
increase in consequence of the general migration to the towns, the sons
of country squires enlisting in the ranks, or betaking themselves to
manual labour in the Colonies--aghast, I say, at these signs of the
times among ourselves, she could but feel some surprise at her French
experiences. The entire absence of mendicants in the departments we had
lately traversed--these reputed among the poorest in France--was
altogether a revelation to her, as indeed it must be to any stranger on
French soil. Even in a neglected-looking place like Peyreleau, where
the people are wholly unused to the sight of tourists, and life is
evidently one of extreme laboriousness, no hand is held out for an
alms. In our long drives across country, where strangers in a carriage
and pair are assuredly taken for millionaires, we were never asked by
man, woman or child for a sou.

Again, the good, neat, suitable clothes of the country-people struck my
friend no less. The total absence of tawdriness and finery on Sundays,
the equally total absence of rags and squalor on week-days, afforded a
striking contrast to what we are accustomed to see at home. It is more
especially in the matter of foot-gear that the working-classes in
France show to advantage. My friend noticed with admiration the
well-stockinged, well-shod children, all having good strong
shoes--stockings evidently bought or made for them, not the ill-fitting
belongings of others, gifts of charity or bargains of the pawnshop. The
men and women, too, are uniformly well shod, with strong, clean,
home-knit stockings. Again, the implied sense of security in these
unprotected gardens and wayside orchards is a novelty to the English
mind. At Hastings, which may also be called the metropolis of vagrancy,
it is impossible to keep a poor little wallflower or a primrose in
one's garden. An apple-tree would be pillaged on any public road in
England before the fruit was half ripe. Not only here, but in Anjou and
many other regions, I have walked or driven for miles, amid unprotected
vineyards and fruit-trees, the ripening crops being within reach of
passers-by. No one pillages his neighbour.

Yes, peasant property is a detestable, nay, an iniquitous, institution,
only to be compared to the Inquisition itself. No one who does not
already possess several thousand acres of land ought to be permitted by
law to purchase a single rood. Nine shillings a week, Christmas doles
of beef and flannel petticoats from the Hall, the workhouse as a reward
for fifty years' patient following the plough--these make up the only
Utopia worth mentioning. Every right-minded person, every true
Christian, has come to such conclusions long ago. Yet when it is
possible to spend weeks in a civilized country without encountering a
beggar; when we see an entire population well-clothed, cheerful, and
self-supporting in old age; when we see fruit-crops ripening in all
security by the roadside, and inquire throughout the length and breadth
of the land for a poor-house in vain; when we find judge and jury
dismissed at assize after assize because there are no criminals to try,
we are tempted to exclaim:

'Peasant property or no, they manage these things better in France!'

'There is no want here,' our driver said, and the fact is self-evident.

As we approach Millau we meet streams of country folk disporting
themselves, some afoot, others in rustic vehicles--the men wearing
clean blue blouses over the Sunday broadcloth, the women neat black
gowns, kerchiefs, and spotless white coiffes. The fields are deserted.
Man and beast are resting from the labours of the week.

The landscape now changes altogether, and we are reminded that we have
quitted the Lozère for the Aveyron. The air has lost the matchless
purity and exhilarating briskness of Sauveterre and
Montpellier-le-Vieux. Alike sky, atmosphere, and vegetation recall the
south. Pink and white oleanders bloom before every door; the quince,
the mulberry, the peach, ripen in every garden. We long to get at our
boxes and exchange woollen travelling-dresses for cottons and muslins.

Pleasant and welcome as is this soft air, this warm heaven, this
bright, rich-coloured, flowery land, we strain our eyes to get a last
glimpse of the Causse Noir. To betake ourselves to cosmopolitan hotels,
cities and railways, after this sojourn in elfdom, was like closing the
pages of 'Don Quixote' or Lucian to read a debate in the House or
listen to a sermon.

And now that I am no longer held spellbound by wizardry and genii, good
or evil, and the first glow of enthusiasm is over, let me jot down a
few hard facts for the reader's edification--give in a few words the
geological and general history of the Causses, if nothing more--a bare
outline to serve the tourist on his way. The origin of the phenomenon
is thus explained by the great French geographer, Elisée Réclus, in his
chapter on 'Le Plateau Central de la France.' [Footnote: See his
'Géographie Universelle,' vol. ii.: 'La France,' 1885.] 'There is no
doubt,' he writes, 'that at a remote period all these plateaux of
jurassic rock formed a single Causse, deposed by the sea in the
southern strait of the granitic group of France. Although the Causse
Méjean, placed almost in the centre of the series of plateaux, is a
hundred mètres loftier than the rest, its formation accords with
theirs. All show the same features. From the banks of the Hérault to
those of the Lot and the Aveyron, all show the same development of
continuous strata. The ancient glaciers spread on the highest summits
of the Cévennes as they melted, gradually cut into the rock, channelled
openings--finally, forcing their way through the layers, have formed
these gigantic defiles, now the marvel of geologists. If the rivers
flow in an unbroken stream in these deep gorges, on the contrary, water
is altogether absent from the plateaux above. The ground, riddled
everywhere into holes and fissures, is hardly moistened by a shower.
The rain, as if falling through a sieve, immediately disappears. In
some places the chasms of rock have widened, the intermediate
projections given way, and huge cavities of rightful depth--avens or
tindouls, as they are locally called--are formed in the limestone. But
the surface of the Causse is almost universally uniform, and these
subterranean wells are only indicated by slight openings. Nowhere a
foundation springs forth. Alike as to formation, aspect, and climate,
the Causses are unique in France.'

This entire chapter is a necessary preparation for no matter how hasty
a journey in the Lozère; equally to be recommended is the study of the
Causses by M. Onèsime Réclus in his work 'La France.' [Footnote:
'L'orage aux larges gouttes, la pluie fine, les ruisseaux de neige
fendue, les sources joyeuses ne sont pas pour le Causse, qui est
fissure, criblé, cassé, qui ne retient point les eaux, tout ce que lui
verse la nue, entre dans la rocaille. Et c'est bien, bien bas que
l'onde engloutie se décide à reparaître, elle sort d'une grotte, au
fond des gorges, au pied de ces roches droites, symétriques,
monumentales, qui porte le terre-plein du Causse. Mais ce que le
plateau n'a bu qu'en mille gorgées, la bouche de la caverne le rend
souvent par un seul flot, les gouttes qui tombent du filtre s'unissant
dans l'ombre en misseaux, puis en rivières. Aussi, les sources du pied
du Causse, sont-elles admirables par l'abondance des eaux, par la
hauteur et la sublimité des rocs, de leur "bouts de mondes." Trop de
soleil si le Causse est bas, trop de neige s'il est élevé, toujours et
partout le vent, qui tord les bois chétifs, pour lac, une mare, pour
rivière un ravin, de rocheuses prairies tondues par des moutons et des
brébis à laine fine, des champs caillouteux d'orge, d'avoine, de pommes
de terre, rarement de blé, voila les Causses! Le Caussenard seul peut
aimer le Causse, mais qui n'admirerait les vallées qui l'entourent?']

I may add that the only traces of volcanic action in the Causses have
been found at Sauveterre, near the so-called capital. Here basaltic
rocks exist amid the limestone.

It is not only the geologist and the botanist, in search of an emotion,
to use a French phrase, who will find a paradise here. The
palæontologist is no less happy. Sparsely peopled, isolated from
civilization as is the 'great jurassic island' in our own day--lost as
it seems to have been in the pages of French history--it was inhabited
by our prehistoric forerunners, contemporaries of the great cave-bear.
The entire department of the Lozère is a rich palæontological field,
and the Causse Méjean especially has afforded abundant treasure-trove.
In the vast caverns and grottoes of its walls, great quantities of
flint implements and fossils, human and animal, have been discovered. A
collection of these may be seen in the museum of Mende.

The Causses, owing to their isolated position, may be said to have
escaped a history. The great wave of religious warfare that devastated
the Cévennes in the Middle Ages passed them by. Only here and there on
the skirts of Sauveterre, near Mende, and of the Causse Noir, near
Millau, as we have seen, are relics of feudal times. Close around,
under the very shadow of these vast promontories, cresting the borders
of the Tarn and the green heights between Millau and Mende, ruined
strongholds and châteaux abound. The Causse itself enjoyed immunity
alike from ferocious seigneurs and still more ferocious theologian
bandits, seeking, as they put it, the salvation of their neighbours'
souls. The merciless Calvinist leader, Merle, who burnt, pillaged, and
depopulated Mende; the equally merciless quellers of the Camisard
revolt, emissaries of Louis XII., were tempted by no more prey to
penetrate these solitudes.

Were they, indeed, peopled at all? Was the so-called capital of
Sauveterre even in existence? Who can answer the questions? Nor is it
easy to determine when the entire region first fell under the
observation of French geographers, and found at last a name and a place
on the map of France.

Arthur Young, the most curious and accurate traveller of his time,
brought, moreover, into contact with the best informed Frenchmen of the
day, had evidently never heard of any portion of the Gévaudan, as the
Lozère was then called, at all answering to the Causses. But a French
traveller before alluded to--himself without doubt stimulated by the
example of our countryman--M. Vaysse de Villiers, author of the
'Itinéraire Descriptif de la France,' did in 1816, or thereabouts,
accomplish the journey from Mende to Florac by way of Sauveterre.
'Never,' he wrote, 'have I seen a more complete aridity, so utter a
desert,' He goes on to describe the beauty of the Tarnon (a small river
of the Lozère) and its verdant banks. 'All this, added to the
delightfulness of the autumn day and the horrible Causse of
Sauveterre,' but just passed, transformed the dreary town and narrow
valley of Florac into a delicious retreat. In a note he gives the
accepted derivation of _Causse_ from _calx_, saying that it was of
general application, and that the word certainly filled a blank in
French nomenclature.

It is now instructive to turn to French guidebooks and see how
completely the region here described was ignored till within the last
few years. I have before me Joanne's invaluable and conscientious
guides for Auvergne, including the Cévennes, published respectively in
1874 and 1883. In the former, whilst the Causses figure in the map,
beyond a brief allusion to the Causse Noir, they are ignored
altogether. St. Énimie is not once mentioned, and nothing is said about
the gorges of the Tarn. As to Montpellier-le-Vieux, it could find no
place in a guide-book of that date, seeing that it was only discovered
ten years later. We now take the edition of 1883. Here, the route from
Mende to St. Énimie by way of Sauveterre is described also in the
fewest possible words, two pages being found sufficient for short
descriptions of the gorges of the Tarn by way of Florac, St. Énimie and
the valley of the Joute. Montpellier-le-Vieux, for the very good reason
mentioned above, is still absent. But just a year later we find the
guide-book remodelled altogether. Joanne now devotes an entire, volume
to the Cévennes, and states in his preface that the new issue of the
'General Itinerary of France' contains an account of a region very
little known to French tourists, yet well worth visiting, the region
comprising the Causses, the Cañon du Tarn and Montpellier-le-Vieux. The
distinguished geographer, alas! did not live to see his little purple
volume, and, I am compelled to add, Baedeker's red rival, in the hands
of scores and hundreds of his fellow-countrymen and women bound for the
Lozère.

If the reader now turns to a map of France, and draws a perpendicular
line from Mende to Lodève, and a vertical line from Millau to Florac,
he will have a pretty good notion of the area occupied by the Causses,
including that of the Larzac in Aveyron.

When it is taken into account that the superficies thus covered in the
Lozère alone reaches the total of 125,000 hectares, some idea may be
gathered of the magnitude of the whole. The entire population of these
highlands was only 6,662 souls in 1876, and there can be little doubt
that, in the slow process of time, either they will be abandoned
altogether, or by means of scientific methods utterly transformed. The
laborious, long-suffering, hitherto ignored Caussenard will not surely
be long neglected by the patriarchal Government of France. The Republic
has laid iron roads across the Lozère, thus redeeming the department
from the isolation and inertia of former times. Another tardigrade act
of justice will surely ere long complete the work, and the inhabitant
of the French steppes be made to share in the well-being and happiness
long enjoyed by his fellow-countrymen.




CHAPTER XVI.

RODEZ, VIC-SUR-CÈRE REVISITED.--A BREAKFAST ON THE BANKS OF THE SAÔNE.


In future, tourists bound northward will be able to reach Neussargues
on the Clermont and Nîmes railway by a direct line from Mende and St.
Flour. As this new line is not yet completed, and I had set my heart
upon revisiting Rodez and Vic-sur-Cère, we took the more circuitous
route, going over the same ground I had traversed the year before. It
was once my ambition to visit one by one every noteworthy spot in
France. The appetite grows by what it feeds on, and now I never see any
striking place without making up my mind to see it twice.

Great was my delight at Rodez to find a bright, cheerful, spick and
span hotel, newly opened since last year. The time-honoured house of
Biney has two credentials worthy of mention--very low charges and good
food. Its modern rival has greater claims upon the wayfarer's
gratitude--pleasant, wholesome rooms, neat chambermaids, and the kind
of modernization so necessary to health and comfort. The Hôtel Flouron,
too, is presided over by a lady, and when we have said this we have
implied a good deal. A grand old town is the capital of the Aveyron. We
must see it again and again to realize its superb position and the
unique splendour of its cathedral, towering over the wide landscape as
our own Ely Cathedral over the eastern plains. To-day it was not
flushed with the flaming red and gold of sunset, as when first I saw it
a year before, but its aspect was perhaps all the more grandiose for
sombre colouring.

From both extremities of the town we obtain vast panoramas; we look
down as if from a mountain-top, the plateau or isthmus on which Rodez
stands being two hundred and fifty feet above the circumjacent plain,
the river Aveyron almost cutting it off from the mainland. Within a few
yards of the Hôtel Flouron we reach the edge of this escarpment, and
gaze upon the wide valley of the Aveyron, village-crested hills, and
the dim blue outline of the far-off Larzac.

From the public promenade at the other end of the city we look westward
upon a richly-cultivated plain set round with the Cantal mountains,
gold-green vineyards, wine-red soil, and deep purple distance.

The physical characteristics of some French departments are as nicely
defined as their political demarcations. Nothing can afford a sharper
contrast than the Aveyron, with its ruddy soil and red rocks, and the
green, pastoral Cantal, land of smiling valleys, unbroken pastures, and
hills that wear a look of perpetual spring. These differences cannot
fail to strike the traveller who journeys from Rodez to Vic-sur-Cère; a
charming bit of railway it is, especially in autumn, when the chestnut
woods begin to show autumn crimson and gold.

And Vic-sur-Cère, too, delights even more on a second visit. The spot
is indeed a corner of Eden--a happy valley, to be transformed, alas!
into a miniature Vals. My hostess told me that a casino, hotel, and
bathing establishment are about to be built, all bringing their
concomitant evils or advantages, as we may respectively regard
cosmopolitan comforts, high prices, frivolous distractions, and a
fashionable crowd.

How kindly the good folks of the homely Hôtel du Pont welcomed their
guest of last year, filling my basket at departure with gifts of
flowers, fruit, and little cheeses, begging me to return the following
summer! At Clermont-Ferrand, good fortune for the first time directed
me to a really comfortable hotel, as on previous visits, alike in
lodgings and hotels, I had been cheated, bullied, and made
uncomfortable. Let me signal alike the fact and the name: at the Hôtel
de la Poste I was enabled really to enjoy this interesting old town,
the views of the Puy de Dôme from every opening, the noble, Romanesque
church of Nôtre Dame du Port, the magnificent display of the shops-no
town in all France where you can buy more beautiful jewellery, bronzes
and porcelain than at Clermont.

My companion quitted me here, proceeding by night express to Paris, and
I took the long, slow, wearisome parliamentary to Lyons, a ten hours'
journey, which wiser travellers will not fail to break half-way. The
only express train between Clermont and Lyons leaves very early in the
morning, so we have a choice of evils.

I do not know why the Puy de Dôme should be my favourite mountain, but
so it is, and never did it look lovelier than to-day, as, with its
sister volcanoes, pyramid upon pyramid of warm purple, it towered above
the green Limagne; gradually the rest receded from view, till at last
nothing was left but that solitary dome of amethyst under the golden
heaven. At Lyons--where I awaited a dear French friend--I always make a
point of seeing the famous town-clock, work of a modern sculptor, a son
of Lyons.

This clock, or rather the marble façade adorning it, is not only a work
of genius, but a sermon in stone, perpetually preached to the surging,
buzzing crowds below. It stands high above the central hall of the
Exchange, at business hours a scene of extraordinary bustle and
excitement, which the public can always watch from the gallery above,
and from which they command an excellent view of the clock.

The noble piece of sculpture forming the façade represents the various
stages of human life--three female figures composing the group--the
Hour that is gone, the Hour that is here, the Hour that is coming.
Simple as is the arrangement of the whole, nevertheless, so skilful is
the pourtrayal that each figure seems to move before our eyes. We
almost see the despairing past sink into the abyss, her passive, erect
sister, the dominant hour, letting go her hand, whilst, radiant and
impatient for her own reign to begin, the joyous impersonation of the
future springs upward as if on wings.

This allegory, so powerfully and poetically rendered in marble, might
have been more appropriately placed. Does it not savour of irony thus
to idealize the three stages of human existence 'among the
money-changers of the Temple'?

Next day was Sunday, as glorious a sixteenth of September as could be
desired. In company with my friend I set off for an al-fresco breakfast
on the banks of the Saône.

No city in all France boasts of more umbrageous walks than Lyons, and
for miles we drive along the plane-bordered quays and suburban slopes,
dotted with villas and chateaux, the modest chalet of the artisan and
small shopkeeper peeping amid vineyards and orchards, whilst showing a
splendid front from English-like park we see many a palatial mansion of
silk merchant or iron-founder.  Between the sunny vine-clad hills and
belt of suburban dwellings flows the placid Saône, a contrast indeed to
its swift, impetuous brother--no wonder the Rhône has a masculine name!

An hour of upward climb, and we might fancy ourselves in Switzerland or
at Keswick, anywhere but within an easy walk of the second Paris--so
cool the shadow of the over-arching trees, so rustic the ferny rock, so
quiet the woodland glades. We got lovely glimpses of the clear, blue
river as, freighted with many a pleasure-boat, it winds its way towards
Macon.

In a sequestered nook at the foot of these wooded hills is a curious
monument, none more martial to be found in the world--the tomb of a
soldier, constructed by soldiers; on a plain marble slab inscribed the
words: 'Here lies a soldier,' not a syllable more.

On either side, under a small open chapel, portico-shaped, in which the
stone lies, are two figures, a dragoon and a foot-soldier, who keep
perpetual watch over their chief.

This is the self-chosen monument of the General Castellane, one of the
first Napoleon's veterans. Perpetual Masses are celebrated here on his
behalf.

We drive on to our destination, the Île Barbe, a narrow wooded islet,
dividing the Saône into two branches, and forming the favourite
holiday-ground of the Lyonnais. The rich hire a special pleasure-boat
or carriage; the happy tourist is, perhaps, like myself, driven thither
by ever-hospitable, too hospitable, French friends, who, not content
with affording their guests a day's unmitigated pleasure, invariably
contrive to eliminate every element of fatigue. Holiday-making is
indeed cultivated to the point of a fine art in France.

For slender purses there are cheap boats, cheap railways, and the
omnibus. It does one's heart good to see scores of family parties
to-day availing themselves of the superb weather and taking a last
picnic. In every green, shady nook we see a merry group squatted on the
ground, relishing their cold patties, fruit and wine, as they can only
be relished out of doors. The babies, nursemaids, and pet dogs are
there. Breakfast over, the holiday-makers amuse themselves,
grandparents and bantlings, with fishing for minnows in the clear
waters.

How merry are all! How all too swiftly fleet the bright hours!

In the spacious, terraced garden of the restaurant we find dozens of
tables spread for richer folk. We prefer the cool, quiet dining-room,
which we have to ourselves, after all. The food is not of the choicest,
the wine compels criticism between each course, we have to wait long
enough for the making of an ordinary meal; but French gaiety and
good-nature overlook these drawbacks, and the charming view of the
river and its wooded banks, the freshness of the air, the atmosphere of
gala and relaxation, make up for everything; the bill is cheerfully
paid, and all but the separate items of the day's enjoyment forgotten.

Perhaps the charm of a French picnic is enhanced by the fact that it is
never made too long. Our neighbours do not make what is called 'a day
of it,' but wisely prefer to take their pleasure as they do their
champagne--in moderation. We drive home, feeling fresh and alert as
when we set out.

Everyone is abroad. As we pass through the workman's suburb, the
ultra-socialist, ultra-revolutionary quarter of the city, in which
political passions have so often raged hotly, and popular feeling has
taken incendiary form, we find only peacefulness and calm. The
socialist and red-revolutionary, in his Sunday's best, sits before his
front door, reading a newspaper, playing with his baby or chatting with
a neighbour. Pet dogs and cats sun themselves with a lazy, Sunday air,
girls and lovers flirt, children play, gossips tell each other the
news. It is difficult to believe that we are passing the stormiest
quarter of the stormiest city in France. All is as quiet as the
riverside scenes we have just left.

With this delightful recollection I close my latest--not, I trust,
last--French journey.

I took leave of my dear friend at Lyons, both of us hoping to breakfast
together next time, not on the banks of the Saône, but on the Eiffel
Tower, there to fête the glorious Revolution, in the words of our great
Fox: 'How much the greatest event that ever happened in the world, and
how much the best!'









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