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Travels With A Donkey In The
Cevennes
By
Robert Louis Stevenson
My Dear Sidney Colvin,
The journey which this little book is to descr=
ibe
was very agreeable and fortunate for me.&n=
bsp;
After an uncouth beginning, I had the best of luck to the end. But we are all travellers in what =
John
Bunyan calls the wilderness of this world--all, too, travellers with a donk=
ey:
and the best that we find in our travels is an honest friend. He is a fortunate voyager who finds
many. We travel, indeed, to f=
ind
them. They are the end and the
reward of life. They keep us =
worthy
of ourselves; and when we are alone, we are only nearer to the absent.
Every book is, in an intimate sense, a circula=
r letter
to the friends of him who writes it.
They alone take his meaning; they find private messages, assurances =
of
love, and expressions of gratitude, dropped for them in every corner. The public is but a generous patro=
n who
defrays the postage. Yet thou=
gh the
letter is directed to all, we have an old and kindly custom of addressing i=
t on
the outside to one. Of what s=
hall a
man be proud, if he is not proud of his friends? And so, my dear Sidney Colvin, it =
is
with pride that I sign myself affectionately yours,
R. L. S.
=
VELAY
=
Many are the mighty things, =
and
nought is more mighty than man. . . . He masters by his devic=
es the
tenant of the fields.
SOPHOCLES.
Who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass?
JOB.
Contents
THE
DONKEY, THE PACK, AND THE PACK-SADDLE.
=
In a
little place called Le Monastier, in a pleasant highland valley fifteen mil=
es
from Le Puy, I spent about a month of fine days. Monastier is notable for the makin=
g of
lace, for drunkenness, for freedom of language, and for unparalleled politi=
cal
dissension. There are adheren=
ts of
each of the four French parties--Legitimists, Orleanists, Imperialists, and
Republicans--in this little mountain-town; and they all hate, loathe, decry,
and calumniate each other. Ex=
cept
for business purposes, or to give each other the lie in a tavern brawl, they
have laid aside even the civility of speech. 'Tis a mere mountain Poland. In the midst of this Babylon I fou=
nd
myself a rallying-point; every one was anxious to be kind and helpful to the
stranger. This was not merely=
from the
natural hospitality of mountain people, nor even from the surprise with whi=
ch I
was regarded as a man living of his own free will in Le Monastier, when he
might just as well have lived anywhere else in this big world; it arose a g=
ood
deal from my projected excursion southward through the Cevennes. A traveller of my sort was a thing
hitherto unheard of in that district.
I was looked upon with contempt, like a man who should project a jou=
rney
to the moon, but yet with a respectful interest, like one setting forth for=
the
inclement Pole. All were read=
y to
help in my preparations; a crowd of sympathisers supported me at the critic=
al
moment of a bargain; not a step was taken but was heralded by glasses round=
and
celebrated by a dinner or a breakfast.
It was already hard upon October before I was
ready to set forth, and at the high altitudes over which my road lay there =
was
no Indian summer to be looked for.
I was determined, if not to camp out, at least to have the means of
camping out in my possession; for there is nothing more harassing to an easy
mind than the necessity of reaching shelter by dusk, and the hospitality of=
a
village inn is not always to be reckoned sure by those who trudge on foot.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> A tent, above all for a solitary
traveller, is troublesome to pitch, and troublesome to strike again; and ev=
en
on the march it forms a conspicuous feature in your baggage. A sleeping-sack, on the other hand=
, is
always ready--you have only to get into it; it serves a double purpose--a b=
ed
by night, a portmanteau by day; and it does not advertise your intention of
camping out to every curious passer- by.&n=
bsp;
This is a huge point. =
If a
camp is not secret, it is but a troubled resting-place; you become a public
character; the convivial rustic visits your bedside after an early supper; =
and
you must sleep with one eye open, and be up before the day. I decided on a sleeping-sack; and =
after repeated
visits to Le Puy, and a deal of high living for myself and my advisers, a
sleeping-sack was designed, constructed, and triumphantly brought home.
This child of my invention was nearly six feet
square, exclusive of two triangular flaps to serve as a pillow by night and=
as
the top and bottom of the sack by day.&nbs=
p;
I call it 'the sack,' but it was never a sack by more than courtesy:
only a sort of long roll or sausage, green waterproof cart-cloth without an=
d blue
sheep's fur within. It was
commodious as a valise, warm and dry for a bed. There was luxurious turning room f=
or one;
and at a pinch the thing might serve for two. I could bury myself in it up to the
neck; for my head I trusted to a fur cap, with a hood to fold down over my =
ears
and a band to pass under my nose like a respirator; and in case of heavy ra=
in I
proposed to make myself a little tent, or tentlet, with my waterproof coat,
three stones, and a bent branch.
It will readily be conceived that I could not
carry this huge package on my own, merely human, shoulders. It remained to choose a beast of b=
urden. Now, a horse is a fine lady among
animals, flighty, timid, delicate in eating, of tender health; he is too
valuable and too restive to be left alone, so that you are chained to your
brute as to a fellow galley-slave; a dangerous road puts him out of his wit=
s;
in short, he's an uncertain and exacting ally, and adds thirty-fold to the
troubles of the voyager. What=
I
required was something cheap and small and hardy, and of a stolid and peace=
ful
temper; and all these requisites pointed to a donkey.
There dwelt an old man in Monastier, of rather
unsound intellect according to some, much followed by street-boys, and know=
n to
fame as Father Adam. Father A=
dam
had a cart, and to draw the cart a diminutive she-ass, not much bigger than=
a
dog, the colour of a mouse, with a kindly eye and a determined under-jaw. There was something neat and high-=
bred, a
quakerish elegance, about the rogue that hit my fancy on the spot. Our first interview was in Monasti=
er
market-place. To prove her go=
od
temper, one child after another was set upon her back to ride, and one afte=
r another
went head over heels into the air; until a want of confidence began to reig=
n in
youthful bosoms, and the experiment was discontinued from a dearth of
subjects. I was already backe=
d by a
deputation of my friends; but as if this were not enough, all the buyers and
sellers came round and helped me in the bargain; and the ass and I and Fath=
er
Adam were the centre of a hubbub for near half an hour. At length she passed into my servi=
ce for
the consideration of sixty-five francs and a glass of brandy. The sack had already cost eighty f=
rancs
and two glasses of beer; so that Modestine, as I instantly baptized her, was
upon all accounts the cheaper article.&nbs=
p;
Indeed, that was as it should be; for she was only an appurtenance o=
f my
mattress, or self-acting bedstead on four castors.
I had a last interview with Father Adam in a
billiard-room at the witching hour of dawn, when I administered the
brandy. He professed himself
greatly touched by the separation, and declared he had often bought white b=
read
for the donkey when he had been content with black bread for himself; but t=
his,
according to the best authorities, must have been a flight of fancy. He had a name in the village for
brutally misusing the ass; yet it is certain that he shed a tear, and the t=
ear made
a clean mark down one cheek.
By the advice of a fallacious local saddler, a
leather pad was made for me with rings to fasten on my bundle; and I
thoughtfully completed my kit and arranged my toilette. By way of armoury and utensils, I =
took a
revolver, a little spirit-lamp and pan, a lantern and some halfpenny candle=
s, a
jack-knife and a large leather flask.
The main cargo consisted of two entire changes of warm clothing--bes=
ides
my travelling wear of country velveteen, pilot-coat, and knitted spencer--s=
ome
books, and my railway-rug, which, being also in the form of a bag, made me =
a double
castle for cold nights. The
permanent larder was represented by cakes of chocolate and tins of Bologna
sausage. All this, except wha=
t I carried
about my person, was easily stowed into the sheepskin bag; and by good fort=
une
I threw in my empty knapsack, rather for convenience of carriage than from =
any
thought that I should want it on my journey. For more immediate needs I took a =
leg of
cold mutton, a bottle of Beaujolais, an empty bottle to carry milk, an
egg-beater, and a considerable quantity of black bread and white, like Fath=
er
Adam, for myself and donkey, only in my scheme of things the destinations w=
ere
reversed.
Monastrians, of all shades of thought in polit=
ics,
had agreed in threatening me with many ludicrous misadventures, and with su=
dden
death in many surprising forms.
Cold, wolves, robbers, above all the nocturnal practical joker, were
daily and eloquently forced on my attention. Yet in these vaticinations, the tr=
ue,
patent danger was left out. L=
ike Christian,
it was from my pack I suffered by the way.=
Before telling my own mishaps, let me in two words relate the lesson=
of
my experience. If the pack is=
well
strapped at the ends, and hung at full length--not doubled, for your
life--across the pack-saddle, the traveller is safe. The saddle will certai=
nly
not fit, such is the imperfection of our transitory life; it will assuredly
topple and tend to overset; but there are stones on every roadside, and a m=
an
soon learns the art of correcting any tendency to overbalance with a
well-adjusted stone.
On the day of my departure I was up a little a=
fter
five; by six, we began to load the donkey; and ten minutes after, my hopes =
were
in the dust. The pad would no=
t stay
on Modestine's back for half a moment.&nbs=
p;
I returned it to its maker, with whom I had so contumelious a passage
that the street outside was crowded from wall to wall with gossips looking =
on
and listening. The pad changed
hands with much vivacity; perhaps it would be more descriptive to say that =
we
threw it at each other's heads; and, at any rate, we were very warm and
unfriendly, and spoke with a deal of freedom.
I had a common donkey pack-saddle--a barde, as
they call it--fitted upon Modestine; and once more loaded her with my
effects. The doubled sack, my
pilot-coat (for it was warm, and I was to walk in my waistcoat), a great ba=
r of
black bread, and an open basket containing the white bread, the mutton, and=
the
bottles, were all corded together in a very elaborate system of knots, and I
looked on the result with fatuous content.=
In such a monstrous deck-cargo, all poised above the donkey's should=
ers,
with nothing below to balance, on a brand-new pack-saddle that had not yet =
been
worn to fit the animal, and fastened with brand-new girths that might be
expected to stretch and slacken by the way, even a very careless traveller
should have seen disaster brewing.
That elaborate system of knots, again, was the work of too many
sympathisers to be very artfully designed.=
It is true they tightened the cords with a will; as many as three at=
a
time would have a foot against Modestine's quarters, and be hauling with
clenched teeth; but I learned afterwards that one thoughtful person, without
any exercise of force, can make a more solid job than half-a-dozen heated a=
nd
enthusiastic grooms. I was th=
en but
a novice; even after the misadventure of the pad nothing could disturb my
security, and I went forth from the stable door as an ox goeth to the
slaughter.
=
The
bell of Monastier was just striking nine as I got quit of these preliminary
troubles and descended the hill through the common. As long as I was within sight of t=
he
windows, a secret shame and the fear of some laughable defeat withheld me f=
rom
tampering with Modestine. She
tripped along upon her four small hoofs with a sober daintiness of gait; fr=
om time
to time she shook her ears or her tail; and she looked so small under the
bundle that my mind misgave me. We
got across the ford without difficulty--there was no doubt about the matter,
she was docility itself--and once on the other bank, where the road begins =
to
mount through pine-woods, I took in my right hand the unhallowed staff, and=
with
a quaking spirit applied it to the donkey.=
Modestine brisked up her pace for perhaps three steps, and then rela=
psed
into her former minuet. Another application had the same effect, and so with
the third. I am worthy the na=
me of
an Englishman, and it goes against my conscience to lay my hand rudely on a
female. I desisted, and looke=
d her
all over from head to foot; the poor brute's knees were trembling and her
breathing was distressed; it was plain that she could go no faster on a
hill. God forbid, thought I, =
that I
should brutalise this innocent creature; let her go at her own pace, and le=
t me
patiently follow.
What that pace was, there is no word mean enou=
gh
to describe; it was something as much slower than a walk as a walk is slower
than a run; it kept me hanging on each foot for an incredible length of tim=
e;
in five minutes it exhausted the spirit and set up a fever in all the muscl=
es
of the leg. And yet I had to =
keep
close at hand and measure my advance exactly upon hers; for if I dropped a =
few
yards into the rear, or went on a few yards ahead, Modestine came instantly=
to
a halt and began to browse. T=
he
thought that this was to last from here to Alais nearly broke my heart. Of all conceivable journeys, this
promised to be the most tedious. I
tried to tell myself it was a lovely day; I tried to charm my foreboding sp=
irit
with tobacco; but I had a vision ever present to me of the long, long roads=
, up
hill and down dale, and a pair of figures ever infinitesimally moving, foot=
by
foot, a yard to the minute, and, like things enchanted in a nightmare,
approaching no nearer to the goal.
In the meantime there came up behind us a tall
peasant, perhaps forty years of age, of an ironical snuffy countenance, and
arrayed in the green tail-coat of the country. He overtook us hand over hand, and
stopped to consider our pitiful advance.
'Your donkey,' says he, 'is very old?'
I told him, I believed not.
Then, he supposed, we had come far.
I told him, we had but newly left Monastier.
'Et vous marchez comme ca!' cried he; and,
throwing back his head, he laughed long and heartily. I watched him, half prepared to fe=
el offended,
until he had satisfied his mirth; and then, 'You must have no pity on these
animals,' said he; and, plucking a switch out of a thicket, he began to lace
Modestine about the stern-works, uttering a cry. The rogue pricked up her ears and =
broke
into a good round pace, which she kept up without flagging, and without
exhibiting the least symptom of distress, as long as the peasant kept beside
us. Her former panting and sh=
aking
had been, I regret to say, a piece of comedy.
My deus ex machina, before he left me, supplie=
d some
excellent, if inhumane, advice; presented me with the switch, which he decl=
ared
she would feel more tenderly than my cane; and finally taught me the true c=
ry or
masonic word of donkey-drivers, 'Proot!'&n=
bsp;
All the time, he regarded me with a comical, incredulous air, which =
was
embarrassing to confront; and smiled over my donkey-driving, as I might have
smiled over his orthography, or his green tail-coat. But it was not my turn for the mom=
ent.
I was proud of my new lore, and thought I had
learned the art to perfection. And
certainly Modestine did wonders for the rest of the fore- noon, and I had a
breathing space to look about me.
It was Sabbath; the mountain-fields were all vacant in the sunshine;=
and
as we came down through St. Martin de Frugeres, the church was crowded to t=
he
door, there were people kneeling without upon the steps, and the sound of t=
he priest's
chanting came forth out of the dim interior. It gave me a home feeling on the s=
pot;
for I am a countryman of the Sabbath, so to speak, and all Sabbath observan=
ces,
like a Scottish accent, strike in me mixed feelings, grateful and the
reverse. It is only a travell=
er,
hurrying by like a person from another planet, who can rightly enjoy the pe=
ace
and beauty of the great ascetic feast.&nbs=
p;
The sight of the resting country does his spirit good. There is something better than mus=
ic in
the wide unusual silence; and it disposes him to amiable thoughts, like the
sound of a little river or the warmth of sunlight.
In this pleasant humour I came down the hill to
where Goudet stands in a green end of a valley, with Chateau Beaufort oppos=
ite
upon a rocky steep, and the stream, as clear as crystal, lying in a deep po=
ol
between them. Above and below, you may hear it wimpling over the stones, an
amiable stripling of a river, which it seems absurd to call the Loire. On all sides, Goudet is shut in by
mountains; rocky footpaths, practicable at best for donkeys, join it to the
outer world of France; and the men and women drink and swear, in their green
corner, or look up at the snow-clad peaks in winter from the threshold of t=
heir
homes, in an isolation, you would think, like that of Homer's Cyclops. But it is not so; the postman reac=
hes
Goudet with the letter-bag; the aspiring youth of Goudet are within a day's
walk of the railway at Le Puy; and here in the inn you may find an engraved
portrait of the host's nephew, Regis Senac, 'Professor of Fencing and Champ=
ion
of the two Americas,' a distinction gained by him, along with the sum of fi=
ve
hundred dollars, at Tammany Hall, New York, on the 10th April 1876.
I hurried over my midday meal, and was early f=
orth
again. But, alas, as we climb=
ed the
interminable hill upon the other side, 'Proot!' seemed to have lost its
virtue. I prooted like a lion=
, I
prooted mellifluously like a sucking-dove; but Modestine would be neither
softened nor intimidated. She=
held
doggedly to her pace; nothing but a blow would move her, and that only for a
second. I must follow at her =
heels,
incessantly belabouring. A mo=
ment's
pause in this ignoble toil, and she relapsed into her own private gait. I think I never heard of any one i=
n as
mean a situation. I must reac=
h the
lake of Bouchet, where I meant to camp, before sundown, and, to have even a
hope of this, I must instantly maltreat this uncomplaining animal. The sound of my own blows sickened=
me. Once, when I looked at her, she ha=
d a
faint resemblance to a lady of my acquaintance who formerly loaded me with
kindness; and this increased my horror of my cruelty.
To make matters worse, we encountered another
donkey, ranging at will upon the roadside; and this other donkey chanced to=
be
a gentleman. He and Modestine=
met
nickering for joy, and I had to separate the pair and beat down their young
romance with a renewed and feverish bastinado. If the other donkey had had the he=
art of
a male under his hide, he would have fallen upon me tooth and hoof; and this
was a kind of consolation--he was plainly unworthy of Modestine's
affection. But the incident
saddened me, as did everything that spoke of my donkey's sex.
It was blazing hot up the valley, windless, wi=
th
vehement sun upon my shoulders; and I had to labour so consistently with my
stick that the sweat ran into my eyes.&nbs=
p;
Every five minutes, too, the pack, the basket, and the pilot-coat wo=
uld
take an ugly slew to one side or the other; and I had to stop Modestine, ju=
st
when I had got her to a tolerable pace of about two miles an hour, to tug,
push, shoulder, and readjust the load. And at last, in the village of Ussel,
saddle and all, the whole hypothec turned round and grovelled in the dust b=
elow
the donkey's belly. She, none
better pleased, incontinently drew up and seemed to smile; and a party of o=
ne
man, two women, and two children came up, and, standing round me in a
half-circle, encouraged her by their example.
I had the devil's own trouble to get the thing
righted; and the instant I had done so, without hesitation, it toppled and =
fell
down upon the other side. Jud=
ge if
I was hot! And yet not a hand=
was
offered to assist me. The man, indeed, told me I ought to have a package of=
a
different shape. I suggested, if he knew nothing better to the point in my
predicament, he might hold his tongue.&nbs=
p;
And the good-natured dog agreed with me smilingly. It was the most despicable fix.
I remembered having laughed myself when I had =
seen
good men struggling with adversity in the person of a jackass, and the
recollection filled me with penitence.&nbs=
p;
That was in my old light days, before this trouble came upon me. God knows at least that I shall ne=
ver
laugh again, thought I. But oh, what a cruel thing is a farce to those enga=
ged
in it!
A little out of the village, Modestine, filled
with the demon, set her heart upon a by-road, and positively refused to lea=
ve
it. I dropped all my bundles,=
and,
I am ashamed to say, struck the poor sinner twice across the face. It was pitiful to see her lift her=
head
with shut eyes, as if waiting for another blow. I came very near crying; but I did=
a
wiser thing than that, and sat squarely down by the roadside to consider my=
situation
under the cheerful influence of tobacco and a nip of brandy. Modestine, in =
the
meanwhile, munched some black bread with a contrite hypocritical air. It was plain that I must make a
sacrifice to the gods of shipwreck.
I threw away the empty bottle destined to carry milk; I threw away my
own white bread, and, disdaining to act by general average, kept the black
bread for Modestine; lastly, I threw away the cold leg of mutton and the
egg-whisk, although this last was dear to my heart. Thus I found room for everything i=
n the
basket, and even stowed the boating- coat on the top. By means of an end of cord I slung=
it
under one arm; and although the cord cut my shoulder, and the jacket hung
almost to the ground, it was with a heart greatly lightened that I set forth
again.
I had now an arm free to thrash Modestine, and
cruelly I chastised her. If I were to reach the lakeside before dark, she m=
ust
bestir her little shanks to some tune.&nbs=
p;
Already the sun had gone down into a windy-looking mist; and although
there were still a few streaks of gold far off to the east on the hills and=
the
black fir-woods, all was cold and grey about our onward path. An infinity of little country by-r=
oads
led hither and thither among the fields.&n=
bsp;
It was the most pointless labyrinth. I could see my destination overhea=
d, or
rather the peak that dominates it; but choose as I pleased, the roads always
ended by turning away from it, and sneaking back towards the valley, or
northward along the margin of the hills.&n=
bsp;
The failing light, the waning colour, the naked, unhomely, stony cou=
ntry
through which I was travelling, threw me into some despondency. I promise you, the stick was not i=
dle; I
think every decent step that Modestine took must have cost me at least two
emphatic blows. There was not
another sound in the neighbourhood but that of my unwearying bastinado.
Suddenly, in the midst of my toils, the load o=
nce
more bit the dust, and, as by enchantment, all the cords were simultaneously
loosened, and the road scattered with my dear possessions. The packing was to begin again fro=
m the
beginning; and as I had to invent a new and better system, I do not doubt b=
ut I
lost half an hour. It began t=
o be
dusk in earnest as I reached a wilderness of turf and stones. It had the air of being a road whi=
ch
should lead everywhere at the same time; and I was falling into something n=
ot
unlike despair when I saw two figures stalking towards me over the stones.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> They walked one behind the other l=
ike
tramps, but their pace was remarkable.&nbs=
p;
The son led the way, a tall, ill-made, sombre, Scottish-looking man;=
the
mother followed, all in her Sunday's best, with an elegantly embroidered ri=
bbon
to her cap, and a new felt hat atop, and proffering, as she strode along wi=
th
kilted petticoats, a string of obscene and blasphemous oaths.
I hailed the son, and asked him my direction.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> He pointed loosely west and north-=
west,
muttered an inaudible comment, and, without slackening his pace for an inst=
ant,
stalked on, as he was going, right athwart my path. The mother followed without so muc=
h as
raising her head. I shouted a=
nd
shouted after them, but they continued to scale the hillside, and turned a =
deaf
ear to my outcries. At last,
leaving Modestine by herself, I was constrained to run after them, hailing =
the
while. They stopped as I drew=
near,
the mother still cursing; and I could see she was a handsome, motherly,
respectable-looking woman. Th=
e son
once more answered me roughly and inaudibly, and was for setting out
again. But this time I simply
collared the mother, who was nearest me, and, apologising for my violence,
declared that I could not let them go until they had put me on my road. They were neither of them offended=
--rather
mollified than otherwise; told me I had only to follow them; and then the m=
other
asked me what I wanted by the lake at such an hour. I replied, in the Scottish manner,=
by
inquiring if she had far to go herself.&nb=
sp;
She told me, with another oath, that she had an hour and a half's ro=
ad
before her. And then, without salutation, the pair strode forward again up =
the hillside
in the gathering dusk.
I returned for Modestine, pushed her briskly
forward, and, after a sharp ascent of twenty minutes, reached the edge of a
plateau. The view, looking ba=
ck on
my day's journey, was both wild and sad.&n=
bsp;
Mount Mezenc and the peaks beyond St. Julien stood out in trenchant
gloom against a cold glitter in the east; and the intervening field of hills
had fallen together into one broad wash of shadow, except here and there the
outline of a wooded sugar-loaf in black, here and there a white irregular p=
atch
to represent a cultivated farm, and here and there a blot where the Loire, =
the
Gazeille, or the Laussonne wandered in a gorge.
Soon we were on a high-road, and surprise seiz=
ed
on my mind as I beheld a village of some magnitude close at hand; for I had
been told that the neighbourhood of the lake was uninhabited except by
trout. The road smoked in the
twilight with children driving home cattle from the fields; and a pair of
mounted stride-legged women, hat and cap and all, dashed past me at a hamme=
ring
trot from the canton where they had been to church and market. I asked one of the children where I
was. At Bouchet St. Nicolas, =
he
told me. Thither, about a mile
south of my destination, and on the other side of a respectable summit, had
these confused roads and treacherous peasantry conducted me. My shoulder was cut, so that it hu=
rt sharply;
my arm ached like toothache from perpetual beating; I gave up the lake and =
my
design to camp, and asked for the auberge.
=
The
auberge of Bouchet St. Nicolas was among the least pretentious I have ever
visited; but I saw many more of the like upon my journey. Indeed, it was typical of these Fr=
ench
highlands. Imagine a cottage =
of two
stories, with a bench before the door; the stable and kitchen in a suite, so
that Modestine and I could hear each other dining; furniture of the plaines=
t,
earthern floors, a single bedchamber for travellers, and that without any
convenience but beds. In the
kitchen cooking and eating go forward side by side, and the family sleep at
night. Any one who has a fanc=
y to
wash must do so in public at the common table. The food is sometimes spare; hard =
fish
and omelette have been my portion more than once; the wine is of the smalle=
st,
the brandy abominable to man; and the visit of a fat sow, grouting under the
table and rubbing against your legs, is no impossible accompaniment to dinn=
er.
But the people of the inn, in nine cases out of
ten, show themselves friendly and considerate. As soon as you cross the doors you=
cease
to be a stranger; and although these peasantry are rude and forbidding on t=
he highway,
they show a tincture of kind breeding when you share their hearth. At Bouchet, for instance, I uncork=
ed my
bottle of Beaujolais, and asked the host to join me. He would take but little.
'I am an amateur of such wine, do you see?' he
said, 'and I am capable of leaving you not enough.'
In these hedge-inns the traveller is expected =
to
eat with his own knife; unless he ask, no other will be supplied: with a gl=
ass,
a whang of bread, and an iron fork, the table is completely laid. My knife was cordially admired by =
the
landlord of Bouchet, and the spring filled him with wonder.
'I should never have guessed that,' he said. 'I would bet,' he added, weighing =
it in
his hand, 'that this cost you not less than five francs.'
When I told him it had cost me twenty, his jaw
dropped.
He was a mild, handsome, sensible, friendly old
man, astonishingly ignorant. =
His
wife, who was not so pleasant in her manners, knew how to read, although I =
do
not suppose she ever did so. =
She
had a share of brains and spoke with a cutting emphasis, like one who ruled=
the
roast.
'My man knows nothing,' she said, with an angry
nod; 'he is like the beasts.'
And the old gentleman signified acquiescence w=
ith
his head. There was no contem=
pt on
her part, and no shame on his; the facts were accepted loyally, and no more=
about
the matter.
I was tightly cross-examined about my journey;=
and
the lady understood in a moment, and sketched out what I should put into my
book when I got home. 'Whether
people harvest or not in such or such a place; if there were forests; studi=
es
of manners; what, for example, I and the master of the house say to you; the
beauties of Nature, and all that.'
And she interrogated me with a look.
'It is just that,' said I.
'You see,' she added to her husband, 'I unders=
tood
that.'
They were both much interested by the story of=
my
misadventures.
'In the morning,' said the husband, 'I will ma=
ke
you something better than your cane.
Such a beast as that feels nothing; it is in the proverb--dur comme =
un
ane; you might beat her insensible with a cudgel, and yet you would arrive
nowhere.'
Something better! I little knew what he was offering=
.
The sleeping-room was furnished with two
beds. I had one; and I will o=
wn I
was a little abashed to find a young man and his wife and child in the act =
of
mounting into the other. This=
was
my first experience of the sort; and if I am always to feel equally silly a=
nd
extraneous, I pray God it be my last as well. I kept my eyes to myself, and know
nothing of the woman except that she had beautiful arms, and seemed no whit
embarrassed by my appearance. As a
matter of fact, the situation was more trying to me than to the pair. A pair keep each other in countena=
nce;
it is the single gentleman who has to blush. But I could not help attributing m=
y sentiments
to the husband, and sought to conciliate his tolerance with a cup of brandy
from my flask. He told me tha=
t he
was a cooper of Alais travelling to St. Etienne in search of work, and that=
in
his spare moments he followed the fatal calling of a maker of matches. Me he readily enough divined to be=
a
brandy merchant.
I was up first in the morning (Monday, Septemb=
er
23rd), and hastened my toilette guiltily, so as to leave a clear field for
madam, the cooper's wife. I d=
rank a
bowl of milk, and set off to explore the neighbourhood of Bouchet. It was perishing cold, a grey, win=
dy,
wintry morning; misty clouds flew fast and low; the wind piped over the nak=
ed
platform; and the only speck of colour was away behind Mount Mezenc and the
eastern hills, where the sky still wore the orange of the dawn.
It was five in the morning, and four thousand =
feet
above the sea; and I had to bury my hands in my pockets and trot. People were trooping out to the la=
bours
of the field by twos and threes, and all turned round to stare upon the str=
anger. I had seen them coming back last n=
ight,
I saw them going afield again; and there was the life of Bouchet in a nutsh=
ell.
When I came back to the inn for a bit of
breakfast, the landlady was in the kitchen combing out her daughter's hair;=
and
I made her my compliments upon its beauty.
'Oh no,' said the mother; 'it is not so beauti=
ful
as it ought to be. Look, it is too fine.'
Thus does a wise peasantry console itself under
adverse physical circumstances, and, by a startling democratic process, the
defects of the majority decide the type of beauty.
'And where,' said I, 'is monsieur?'
'The master of the house is upstairs,' she
answered, 'making you a goad.'
Blessed be the man who invented goads! Blessed the innkeeper of Bouchet S=
t.
Nicolas, who introduced me to their use!&n=
bsp;
This plain wand, with an eighth of an inch of pin, was indeed a scep=
tre
when he put it in my hands.
Thenceforward Modestine was my slave. A prick, and she passed the most
inviting stable door. A prick=
, and
she broke forth into a gallant little trotlet that devoured the miles. It was not a remarkable speed, whe=
n all
was said; and we took four hours to cover ten miles at the best of it. But what a heavenly change since
yesterday! No more wielding o=
f the
ugly cudgel; no more flailing with an aching arm; no more broadsword exerci=
se,
but a discreet and gentlemanly fence.
And what although now and then a drop of blood should appear on
Modestine's mouse- coloured wedge-like rump? I should have preferred it otherwi=
se,
indeed; but yesterday's exploits had purged my heart of all humanity. The perverse little devil, since s=
he
would not be taken with kindness, must even go with pricking.
It was bleak and bitter cold, and, except a
cavalcade of stride-legged ladies and a pair of post-runners, the road was =
dead
solitary all the way to Pradelles.
I scarce remember an incident but one. A handsome foal with a bell about =
his
neck came charging up to us upon a stretch of common, sniffed the air marti=
ally
as one about to do great deeds, and suddenly thinking otherwise in his green
young heart, put about and galloped off as he had come, the bell tinkling in
the wind. For a long while
afterwards I saw his noble attitude as he drew up, and heard the note of his
bell; and when I struck the high-road, the song of the telegraph-wires seem=
ed
to continue the same music.
Pradelles stands on a hillside, high above the
Allier, surrounded by rich meadows.
They were cutting aftermath on all sides, which gave the neighbourho=
od,
this gusty autumn morning, an untimely smell of hay. On the opposite bank of the Allier=
the
land kept mounting for miles to the horizon: a tanned and sallow autumn
landscape, with black blots of fir- wood and white roads wandering through =
the
hills. Over all this the clou=
ds
shed a uniform and purplish shadow, sad and somewhat menacing, exaggerating
height and distance, and throwing into still higher relief the twisted ribb=
ons
of the highway. It was a chee=
rless
prospect, but one stimulating to a traveller. For I was now upon the limit of Ve=
lay,
and all that I beheld lay in another county--wild Gevaudan, mountainous, un=
cultivated,
and but recently disforested from terror of the wolves.
Wolves, alas, like bandits, seem to flee the
traveller's advance; and you may trudge through all our comfortable Europe,=
and
not meet with an adventure worth the name.=
But here, if anywhere, a man was on the frontiers of hope. For this was the land of the
ever-memorable BEAST, the Napoleon Bonaparte of wolves. What a career was his! He lived ten months at free quarte=
rs in
Gevaudan and Vivarais; he ate women and children and 'shepherdesses celebra=
ted
for their beauty'; he pursued armed horsemen; he has been seen at broad noo=
nday
chasing a post-chaise and outrider along the king's high-road, and chaise a=
nd
outrider fleeing before him at the gallop.=
He was placarded like a political offender, and ten thousand francs =
were
offered for his head. And yet=
, when
he was shot and sent to Versailles, behold! a common wolf, and even small f=
or that. 'Though I could reach from pole to
pole,' sang Alexander Pope; the Little Corporal shook Europe; and if all wo=
lves
had been as this wolf, they would have changed the history of man. M. Elie Berthet has made him the h=
ero of
a novel, which I have read, and do not wish to read again.
I hurried over my lunch, and was proof against=
the
landlady's desire that I should visit our Lady of Pradelles, 'who performed
many miracles, although she was of wood'; and before three-quarters of an h=
our
I was goading Modestine down the steep descent that leads to Langogne on th=
e Allier. On both sides of the road, in big =
dusty
fields, farmers were preparing for next spring. Every fifty yards a yoke of great-=
necked
stolid oxen were patiently haling at the plough. I saw one of these mild formidable
servants of the glebe, who took a sudden interest in Modestine and me. The furrow down which he was journ=
eying
lay at an angle to the road, and his head was solidly fixed to the yoke like
those of caryatides below a ponderous cornice; but he screwed round his big
honest eyes and followed us with a ruminating look, until his master bade h=
im
turn the plough and proceed to reascend the field. From all these furrowing ploughsha=
res,
from the feet of oxen, from a labourer here and there who was breaking the =
dry
clods with a hoe, the wind carried away a thin dust like so much smoke. It was a fine, busy, breathing, ru=
stic
landscape; and as I continued to descend, the highlands of Gevaudan kept
mounting in front of me against the sky.
I had crossed the Loire the day before; now I =
was
to cross the Allier; so near are these two confluents in their youth. Just at the bridge of Langogne, as=
the
long-promised rain was beginning to fall, a lassie of some seven or eight
addressed me in the sacramental phrase, 'D'ou'st-ce- que vous venez?' She did it with so high an air tha=
t she
set me laughing; and this cut her to the quick. She was evidently one who reckoned=
on
respect, and stood looking after me in silent dudgeon, as I crossed the bri=
dge
and entered the county of Gevaudan.
=
UPPER GEVAUDAN
=
The way also here was very
wearisome through dirt and slabbiness; nor was there on all this g=
round
so much as one inn or victualling-house wherein to refresh the
feebler sort.
=
The
next day (Tuesday, September 24th), it was two o'clock in the afternoon bef=
ore
I got my journal written up and my knapsack repaired, for I was determined =
to
carry my knapsack in the future and have no more ado with baskets; and half=
an
hour afterwards I set out for Le Cheylard l'Eveque, a place on the borders =
of
the forest of Mercoire. A man=
, I
was told, should walk there in an hour and a half; and I thought it scarce =
too
ambitious to suppose that a man encumbered with a donkey might cover the sa=
me
distance in four hours.
All the way up the long hill from Langogne it
rained and hailed alternately; the wind kept freshening steadily, although
slowly; plentiful hurrying clouds--some dragging veils of straight rain-sho=
wer,
others massed and luminous as though promising snow--careered out of the no=
rth
and followed me along my way. I was
soon out of the cultivated basin of the Allier, and away from the ploughing
oxen, and such-like sights of the country.=
Moor, heathery marsh, tracts of rock and pines, woods of birch all
jewelled with the autumn yellow, here and there a few naked cottages and bl=
eak
fields,--these were the characters of the country. Hill and valley followed valley and
hill; the little green and stony cattle-tracks wandered in and out of one
another, split into three or four, died away in marshy hollows, and began a=
gain
sporadically on hillsides or at the borders of a wood.
There was no direct road to Cheylard, and it w=
as
no easy affair to make a passage in this uneven country and through this
intermittent labyrinth of tracks.
It must have been about four when I struck Sagnerousse, and went on =
my
way rejoicing in a sure point of departure. Two hours afterwards, the dusk rap=
idly
falling, in a lull of the wind, I issued from a fir-wood where I had long b=
een
wandering, and found, not the looked-for village, but another marish bottom
among rough-and-tumble hills. For
some time past I had heard the ringing of cattle-bells ahead; and now, as I
came out of the skirts of the wood, I saw near upon a dozen cows and perhap=
s as
many more black figures, which I conjectured to be children, although the m=
ist
had almost unrecognisably exaggerated their forms. These were all silently following =
each
other round and round in a circle, now taking hands, now breaking up with
chains and reverences. A danc=
e of
children appeals to very innocent and lively thoughts; but, at nightfall on=
the
marshes, the thing was eerie and fantastic to behold. Even I, who am well enough read in
Herbert Spencer, felt a sort of silence fall for an instant on my mind. The next, I was pricking Modestine
forward, and guiding her like an unruly ship through the open. In a path, she went doggedly ahead=
of
her own accord, as before a fair wind; but once on the turf or among heathe=
r,
and the brute became demented. The
tendency of lost travellers to go round in a circle was developed in her to=
the
degree of passion, and it took all the steering I had in me to keep even a
decently straight course through a single field.
While I was thus desperately tacking through t=
he
bog, children and cattle began to disperse, until only a pair of girls rema=
ined
behind. From these I sought
direction on my path. The pea=
santry
in general were but little disposed to counsel a wayfarer. One old devil simply retired into =
his
house, and barricaded the door on my approach; and I might beat and shout
myself hoarse, he turned a deaf ear.
Another, having given me a direction which, as I found afterwards, I=
had
misunderstood, complacently watched me going wrong without adding a sign. He did not care a stalk of parsley=
if I
wandered all night upon the hills!
As for these two girls, they were a pair of impudent sly sluts, with=
not
a thought but mischief. One put out her tongue at me, the other bade me fol=
low
the cows; and they both giggled and jogged each other's elbows. The Beast of Gevaudan ate about a
hundred children of this district; I began to think of him with sympathy.
Leaving the girls, I pushed on through the bog,
and got into another wood and upon a well-marked road. It grew darker and darker. Modestine, suddenly beginning to s=
mell
mischief, bettered the pace of her own accord, and from that time forward g=
ave
me no trouble. It was the fir=
st sign
of intelligence I had occasion to remark in her. At the same time, the wind freshen=
ed
into half a gale, and another heavy discharge of rain came flying up out of=
the
north. At the other side of t=
he
wood I sighted some red windows in the dusk. This was the hamlet of Fouzilhic; =
three houses
on a hillside, near a wood of birches.&nbs=
p;
Here I found a delightful old man, who came a little way with me in =
the
rain to put me safely on the road for Cheylard. He would hear of no reward; but sh=
ook
his hands above his head almost as if in menace, and refused volubly and
shrilly, in unmitigated patois.
All seemed right at last. My thoughts began to turn upon din=
ner
and a fireside, and my heart was agreeably softened in my bosom. Alas, and I was on the brink of ne=
w and
greater miseries! Suddenly, a=
t a
single swoop, the night fell. I
have been abroad in many a black night, but never in a blacker. A glimmer of rocks, a glimmer of t=
he
track where it was well beaten, a certain fleecy density, or night within
night, for a tree,--this was all that I could discriminate. The sky was simply darkness overhe=
ad;
even the flying clouds pursued their way invisibly to human eyesight. I could not distinguish my hand at
arm's-length from the track, nor my goad, at the same distance, from the
meadows or the sky.
Soon the road that I was following split, after
the fashion of the country, into three or four in a piece of rocky meadow.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Since Modestine had shown such a f=
ancy
for beaten roads, I tried her instinct in this predicament. But the instinct of an ass is what=
might
be expected from the name; in half a minute she was clambering round and ro=
und
among some boulders, as lost a donkey as you would wish to see. I should have camped long before h=
ad I
been properly provided; but as this was to be so short a stage, I had broug=
ht
no wine, no bread for myself, and little over a pound for my lady friend. Add to this, that I and Modestine =
were both
handsomely wetted by the showers.
But now, if I could have found some water, I should have camped at o=
nce
in spite of all. Water, howev=
er,
being entirely absent, except in the form of rain, I determined to return to
Fouzilhic, and ask a guide a little farther on my way--'a little farther le=
nd
thy guiding hand.'
The thing was easy to decide, hard to
accomplish. In this sensible =
roaring
blackness I was sure of nothing but the direction of the wind. To this I set my face; the road had
disappeared, and I went across country, now in marshy opens, now baffled by
walls unscalable to Modestine, until I came once more in sight of some red =
windows. This time they were differently
disposed. It was not Fouzilhi=
c, but
Fouzilhac, a hamlet little distant from the other in space, but worlds away=
in
the spirit of its inhabitants. I
tied Modestine to a gate, and groped forward, stumbling among rocks, plungi=
ng
mid-leg in bog, until I gained the entrance of the village. In the first lighted house there w=
as a
woman who would not open to me. She
could do nothing, she cried to me through the door, being alone and lame; b=
ut
if I would apply at the next house, there was a man who could help me if he=
had
a mind.
They came to the next door in force, a man, two
women, and a girl, and brought a pair of lanterns to examine the wayfarer.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> The man was not ill- looking, but =
had a
shifty smile. He leaned again=
st the
doorpost, and heard me state my case.
All I asked was a guide as far as Cheylard.
'C'est que, voyez-vous, il fait noir,' said he=
.
I told him that was just my reason for requiri=
ng
help.
'I understand that,' said he, looking
uncomfortable; 'mais--c'est--de la peine.'
I was willing to pay, I said. He shook his head. I rose as high as ten francs; but =
he
continued to shake his head. =
'Name
your own price, then,' said I.
'Ce n'est pas ca,' he said at length, and with
evident difficulty; 'but I am not going to cross the door--mais je ne sorti=
rai
pas de la porte.'
I grew a little warm, and asked him what he
proposed that I should do.
'Where are you going beyond Cheylard?' he aske=
d by
way of answer.
'That is no affair of yours,' I returned, for I
was not going to indulge his bestial curiosity; 'it changes nothing in my
present predicament.'
'C'est vrai, ca,' he acknowledged, with a laug=
h;
'oui, c'est vrai. Et d'ou
venez-vous?'
A better man than I might have felt nettled.
'Oh,' said I, 'I am not going to answer any of
your questions, so you may spare yourself the trouble of putting them. I am late enough already; I want
help. If you will not guide me
yourself, at least help me to find some one else who will.'
'Hold on,' he cried suddenly. 'Was it not you who passed in the =
meadow
while it was still day?'
'Yes, yes,' said the girl, whom I had not hith=
erto
recognised; 'it was monsieur; I told him to follow the cow.'
'As for you, mademoiselle,' said I, 'you are a
farceuse.'
'And,' added the man, 'what the devil have you
done to be still here?'
What the devil, indeed! But there I was.
'The great thing,' said I, 'is to make an end =
of
it'; and once more proposed that he should help me to find a guide.
'C'est que,' he said again, 'c'est que--il fai=
t noir.'
'Very well,' said I; 'take one of your lantern=
s.'
'No,' he cried, drawing a thought backward, and
again intrenching himself behind one of his former phrases; 'I will not cro=
ss
the door.'
I looked at him. I saw unaffected terror struggling=
on
his face with unaffected shame; he was smiling pitifully and wetting his lip
with his tongue, like a detected schoolboy. I drew a brief picture of my state=
, and
asked him what I was to do.
'I don't know,' he said; 'I will not cross the
door.'
Here was the Beast of Gevaudan, and no mistake=
.
'Sir,' said I, with my most commanding manners,
'you are a coward.'
And with that I turned my back upon the family
party, who hastened to retire within their fortifications; and the famous d=
oor
was closed again, but not till I had overheard the sound of laughter. Filia barbara pater barbarior. Let me say it in the plural: the B=
easts
of Gevaudan.
The lanterns had somewhat dazzled me, and I
ploughed distressfully among stones and rubbish-heaps. All the other houses in the villag=
e were
both dark and silent; and though I knocked at here and there a door, my kno=
cking
was unanswered. It was a bad
business; I gave up Fouzilhac with my curses. The rain had stopped, and the wind,
which still kept rising, began to dry my coat and trousers. 'Very well,' thought I, 'water or =
no water,
I must camp.' But the first t=
hing
was to return to Modestine. I=
am
pretty sure I was twenty minutes groping for my lady in the dark; and if it=
had
not been for the unkindly services of the bog, into which I once more stumb=
led,
I might have still been groping for her at the dawn. My next business was to
gain the shelter of a wood, for the wind was cold as well as boisterous.
At last black trees began to show upon my left,
and, suddenly crossing the road, made a cave of unmitigated blackness right=
in
front. I call it a cave witho=
ut
exaggeration; to pass below that arch of leaves was like entering a
dungeon. I felt about until m=
y hand
encountered a stout branch, and to this I tied Modestine, a haggard, drench=
ed,
desponding donkey. Then I low=
ered
my pack, laid it along the wall on the margin of the road, and unbuckled the
straps. I knew well enough wh=
ere
the lantern was; but where were the candles? I groped and groped among the tumb=
led articles,
and, while I was thus groping, suddenly I touched the spirit- lamp. Salvation! This would serve my turn as well.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> The wind roared unwearyingly among=
the
trees; I could hear the boughs tossing and the leaves churning through half=
a
mile of forest; yet the scene of my encampment was not only as black as the
pit, but admirably sheltered. At the
second match the wick caught flame.
The light was both livid and shifting; but it cut me off from the
universe, and doubled the darkness of the surrounding night.
I tied Modestine more conveniently for herself=
, and
broke up half the black bread for her supper, reserving the other half agai=
nst
the morning. Then I gathered what I should want within reach, took off my w=
et
boots and gaiters, which I wrapped in my waterproof, arranged my knapsack f=
or a
pillow under the flap of my sleeping-bag, insinuated my limbs into the inte=
rior,
and buckled myself in like a bambino.
I opened a tin of Bologna sausage and broke a cake of chocolate, and
that was all I had to eat. It=
may
sound offensive, but I ate them together, bite by bite, by way of bread and
meat. All I had to wash down =
this
revolting mixture was neat brandy: a revolting beverage in itself. But I was rare and hungry; ate wel=
l, and
smoked one of the best cigarettes in my experience. Then I put a stone in my straw hat,
pulled the flap of my fur cap over my neck and eyes, put my revolver ready =
to
my hand, and snuggled well down among the sheepskins.
I questioned at first if I were sleepy, for I =
felt
my heart beating faster than usual, as if with an agreeable excitement to w=
hich
my mind remained a stranger. =
But as
soon as my eyelids touched, that subtle glue leaped between them, and they
would no more come separate. =
The
wind among the trees was my lullaby.
Sometimes it sounded for minutes together with a steady, even rush, =
not
rising nor abating; and again it would swell and burst like a great crashing
breaker, and the trees would patter me all over with big drops from the rai=
n of
the afternoon. Night after ni=
ght,
in my own bedroom in the country, I have given ear to this perturbing conce=
rt
of the wind among the woods; but whether it was a difference in the trees, =
or
the lie of the ground, or because I was myself outside and in the midst of =
it,
the fact remains that the wind sang to a different tune among these woods of
Gevaudan. I hearkened and hea=
rkened;
and meanwhile sleep took gradual possession of my body and subdued my thoug=
hts
and senses; but still my last waking effort was to listen and distinguish, =
and
my last conscious state was one of wonder at the foreign clamour in my ears=
.
Twice in the course of the dark hours--once wh=
en a
stone galled me underneath the sack, and again when the poor patient Modest=
ine,
growing angry, pawed and stamped upon the road--I was recalled for a brief
while to consciousness, and saw a star or two overhead, and the lace-like e=
dge of
the foliage against the sky. =
When I
awoke for the third time (Wednesday, September 25th), the world was flooded
with a blue light, the mother of the dawn.=
I saw the leaves labouring in the wind and the ribbon of the road; a=
nd,
on turning my head, there was Modestine tied to a beech, and standing half
across the path in an attitude of inimitable patience. I closed my eyes again, and set to
thinking over the experience of the night.=
I was surprised to find how easy and pleasant it had been, even in t=
his
tempestuous weather. The stone
which annoyed me would not have been there, had I not been forced to camp
blindfold in the opaque night; and I had felt no other inconvenience, except
when my feet encountered the lantern or the second volume of Peyrat's Pasto=
rs
of the Desert among the mixed contents of my sleeping-bag; nay, more, I had=
felt
not a touch of cold, and awakened with unusually lightsome and clear sensat=
ions.
With that, I shook myself, got once more into =
my
boots and gaiters, and, breaking up the rest of the bread for Modestine,
strolled about to see in what part of the world I had awakened. Ulysses, left on Ithaca, and with =
a mind
unsettled by the goddess, was not more pleasantly astray. I have been after an adventure all=
my
life, a pure dispassionate adventure, such as befell early and heroic voyag=
ers;
and thus to be found by morning in a random woodside nook in Gevaudan--not
knowing north from south, as strange to my surroundings as the first man up=
on
the earth, an inland castaway--was to find a fraction of my day-dreams
realised. I was on the skirts=
of a
little wood of birch, sprinkled with a few beeches; behind, it adjoined ano=
ther
wood of fir; and in front, it broke up and went down in open order into a
shallow and meadowy dale. All
around there were bare hilltops, some near, some far away, as the perspecti=
ve
closed or opened, but none apparently much higher than the rest. The wind huddled the trees. The golden specks of autumn in the
birches tossed shiveringly.
Overhead the sky was full of strings and shreds of vapour, flying,
vanishing, reappearing, and turning about an axis like tumblers, as the wind
hounded them through heaven. =
It was
wild weather and famishing cold. I
ate some chocolate, swallowed a mouthful of brandy, and smoked a cigarette
before the cold should have time to disable my fingers. And by the time I had got all this=
done,
and had made my pack and bound it on the pack-saddle, the day was tiptoe on=
the
threshold of the east. We had=
not
gone many steps along the lane, before the sun, still invisible to me, sent=
a
glow of gold over some cloud mountains that lay ranged along the eastern sk=
y.
The wind had us on the stern, and hurried us
bitingly forward. I buttoned =
myself
into my coat, and walked on in a pleasant frame of mind with all men, when
suddenly, at a corner, there was Fouzilhic once more in front of me. Nor only that, but there was the o=
ld
gentleman who had escorted me so far the night before, running out of his h=
ouse
at sight of me, with hands upraised in horror.
'My poor boy!' he cried, 'what does this mean?=
'
I told him what had happened. He beat his old hands like clapper=
s in a
mill, to think how lightly he had let me go; but when he heard of the man of
Fouzilhac, anger and depression seized upon his mind.
'This time, at least,' said he, 'there shall b=
e no
mistake.'
And he limped along, for he was very rheumatic,
for about half a mile, and until I was almost within sight of Cheylard, the
destination I had hunted for so long.
=
Candidly,
it seemed little worthy of all this searching. A few broken ends of village, with=
no
particular street, but a succession of open places heaped with logs and fag=
ots;
a couple of tilted crosses, a shrine to Our Lady of all Graces on the summi=
t of
a little hill; and all this, upon a rattling highland river, in the corner =
of a
naked valley. What went ye ou=
t for
to see? thought I to myself. =
But
the place had a life of its own. I
found a board, commemorating the liberalities of Cheylard for the past year,
hung up, like a banner, in the diminutive and tottering church. In 1877, it appeared, the inhabita=
nts
subscribed forty-eight francs ten centimes for the 'Work of the Propagation=
of
the Faith.' Some of this, I c=
ould
not help hoping, would be applied to my native land. Cheylard scrapes toget=
her
halfpence for the darkened souls in Edinburgh; while Balquhidder and
Dunrossness bemoan the ignorance of Rome.&=
nbsp;
Thus, to the high entertainment of the angels, do we pelt each other
with evangelists, like schoolboys bickering in the snow. The inn was again singularly unpretentious.
'You will do yourself an evil,' she said. 'Permit me to boil it for you.'
After I had begun the morning on this delightf=
ul
liquor, she having an infinity of things to arrange, I was permitted, nay
requested, to make a bowl of chocolate for myself. My boots and gaiters were hung up =
to
dry, and, seeing me trying to write my journal on my knee, the eldest daugh=
ter let
down a hinged table in the chimney-corner for my convenience. Here I wrote, drank my chocolate, =
and
finally ate an omelette before I left.&nbs=
p;
The table was thick with dust; for, as they explained, it was not us=
ed
except in winter weather. I h=
ad a
clear look up the vent, through brown agglomerations of soot and blue vapou=
r,
to the sky; and whenever a handful of twigs was thrown on to the fire, my l=
egs
were scorched by the blaze.
The husband had begun life as a muleteer, and =
when
I came to charge Modestine showed himself full of the prudence of his art.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> 'You will have to change this pack=
age,'
said he; 'it ought to be in two parts, and then you might have double the
weight.'
I explained that I wanted no more weight; and =
for
no donkey hitherto created would I cut my sleeping-bag in two.
'It fatigues her, however,' said the innkeeper;
'it fatigues her greatly on the march.&nbs=
p;
Look.'
Alas, there were her two forelegs no better th=
an
raw beef on the inside, and blood was running from under her tail. They told me when I started, and I=
was
ready to believe it, that before a few days I should come to love Modestine
like a dog. Three days had pa=
ssed,
we had shared some misadventures, and my heart was still as cold as a potato
towards my beast of burden. S=
he was
pretty enough to look at; but then she had given proof of dead stupidity,
redeemed indeed by patience, but aggravated by flashes of sorry and ill-jud=
ged
light-heartedness. And I own =
this
new discovery seemed another point against her. What the devil was the good of a s=
he-ass
if she could not carry a sleeping-bag and a few necessaries? I saw the end of the fable rapidly
approaching, when I should have to carry Modestine. AEsop was the man to know the
world! I assure you I set out=
with
heavy thoughts upon my short day's march.
It was not only heavy thoughts about Modestine
that weighted me upon the way; it was a leaden business altogether. For first, the wind blew so rudely=
that
I had to hold on the pack with one hand from Cheylard to Luc; and second, my
road lay through one of the most beggarly countries in the world. It was like the worst of the Scott=
ish
Highlands, only worse; cold, naked, and ignoble, scant of wood, scant of
heather, scant of life. A road and some fences broke the unvarying waste, a=
nd
the line of the road was marked by upright pillars, to serve in time of sno=
w.
Why any one should desire to visit either Luc =
or
Cheylard is more than my much-inventing spirit can suppose. For my part, I travel not to go an=
ywhere,
but to go. I travel for trave=
l's
sake. The great affair is to =
move;
to feel the needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to come down off this
feather-bed of civilisation, and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn
with cutting flints. Alas, as=
we
get up in life, and are more preoccupied with our affairs, even a holiday i=
s a
thing that must be worked for. To
hold a pack upon a pack-saddle against a gale out of the freezing north is =
no
high industry, but it is one that serves to occupy and compose the mind.
I came out at length above the Allier. A more unsightly prospect at this =
season
of the year it would be hard to fancy.&nbs=
p;
Shelving hills rose round it on all sides, here dabbled with wood and
fields, there rising to peaks alternately naked and hairy with pines. The colour throughout was black or=
ashen,
and came to a point in the ruins of the castle of Luc, which pricked up
impudently from below my feet, carrying on a pinnacle a tall white statue of
Our Lady, which, I heard with interest, weighed fifty quintals, and was to =
be
dedicated on the 6th of October.
Through this sorry landscape trickled the Allier and a tributary of
nearly equal size, which came down to join it through a broad nude valley in
Vivarais. The weather had som=
ewhat
lightened, and the clouds massed in squadron; but the fierce wind still hun=
ted
them through heaven, and cast great ungainly splashes of shadow and sunlight
over the scene.
Luc itself was a straggling double file of hou=
ses
wedged between hill and river. It
had no beauty, nor was there any notable feature, save the old castle overh=
ead
with its fifty quintals of brand-new Madonna. But the inn was clean and large. The kitchen, with its two box-beds=
hung
with clean check curtains, with its wide stone chimney, its chimney-shelf f=
our yards
long and garnished with lanterns and religious statuettes, its array of che=
sts
and pair of ticking clocks, was the very model of what a kitchen ought to b=
e; a
melodrama kitchen, suitable for bandits or noblemen in disguise. Nor was the scene disgraced by the
landlady, a handsome, silent, dark old woman, clothed and hooded in black l=
ike
a nun. Even the public bedroom had a character of its own, with the long de=
al tables
and benches, where fifty might have dined, set out as for a harvest-home, a=
nd
the three box-beds along the wall.
In one of these, lying on straw and covered with a pair of
table-napkins, did I do penance all night long in goose-flesh and chattering
teeth, and sigh, from time to time as I awakened, for my sheepskin sack and=
the
lee of some great wood.
=
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS
=
'I behold =
The
House, the Brotherhood austere-- And what am I, that I am
here?'
MATTHEW ARNOLD.
=
Next
morning (Thursday, 26th September) I took the road in a new order. The sack=
was
no longer doubled, but hung at full length across the saddle, a green sausa=
ge
six feet long with a tuft of blue wool hanging out of either end. It was more picturesque, it spared=
the
donkey, and, as I began to see, it would ensure stability, blow high, blow
low. But it was not without a=
pang
that I had so decided. For al=
though
I had purchased a new cord, and made all as fast as I was able, I was yet j=
ealously
uneasy lest the flaps should tumble out and scatter my effects along the li=
ne
of march.
My way lay up the bald valley of the river, al=
ong
the march of Vivarais and Gevaudan.
The hills of Gevaudan on the right were a little more naked, if
anything, than those of Vivarais upon the left, and the former had a monopo=
ly
of a low dotty underwood that grew thickly in the gorges and died out in
solitary burrs upon the shoulders and the summits. Black bricks of fir-wood were plas=
tered
here and there upon both sides, and here and there were cultivated fields.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> A railway ran beside the river; th=
e only
bit of railway in Gevaudan, although there are many proposals afoot and sur=
veys
being made, and even, as they tell me, a station standing ready built in
Mende. A year or two hence an=
d this
may be another world. The des=
ert is
beleaguered. Now may some
Languedocian Wordsworth turn the sonnet into patois: 'Mountains and vales a=
nd
floods, heard YE that whistle?'
At a place called La Bastide I was directed to
leave the river, and follow a road that mounted on the left among the hills=
of
Vivarais, the modern Ardeche; for I was now come within a little way of my
strange destination, the Trappist monastery of Our Lady of the Snows. The sun came out as I left the she=
lter
of a pine-wood, and I beheld suddenly a fine wild landscape to the south. High rocky hills, as blue as sapph=
ire, closed
the view, and between these lay ridge upon ridge, heathery, craggy, the sun
glittering on veins of rock, the underwood clambering in the hollows, as ru=
de
as God made them at the first.
There was not a sign of man's hand in all the prospect; and indeed n=
ot a
trace of his passage, save where generation after generation had walked in
twisted footpaths, in and out among the beeches, and up and down upon the
channelled slopes. The mists, which had hitherto beset me, were now broken =
into
clouds, and fled swiftly and shone brightly in the sun. I drew a long breath. It was grateful to come, after so =
long,
upon a scene of some attraction for the human heart. I own I like definite form in what=
my
eyes are to rest upon; and if landscapes were sold, like the sheets of
characters of my boyhood, one penny plain and twopence coloured, I should go
the length of twopence every day of my life.
But if things had grown better to the south, it
was still desolate and inclement near at hand. A spidery cross on every hill-top =
marked
the neighbourhood of a religious house; and a quarter of a mile beyond, the=
outlook
southward opening out and growing bolder with every step, a white statue of=
the
Virgin at the corner of a young plantation directed the traveller to Our La=
dy
of the Snows. Here, then, I s=
truck
leftward, and pursued my way, driving my secular donkey before me, and crea=
king
in my secular boots and gaiters, towards the asylum of silence.
I had not gone very far ere the wind brought t=
o me
the clanging of a bell, and somehow, I can scarce tell why, my heart sank
within me at the sound. I have
rarely approached anything with more unaffected terror than the monastery of
Our Lady of the Snows. This i=
t is
to have had a Protestant education.
And suddenly, on turning a corner, fear took hold on me from head to
foot--slavish, superstitious fear; and though I did not stop in my advance,=
yet
I went on slowly, like a man who should have passed a bourne unnoticed, and
strayed into the country of the dead.
For there, upon the narrow new-made road, between the stripling pine=
s,
was a mediaeval friar, fighting with a barrowful of turfs. Every Sunday of my childhood I use=
d to
study the Hermits of Marco Sadeler--enchanting prints, full of wood and fie=
ld
and mediaeval landscapes, as large as a county, for the imagination to go
a-travelling in; and here, sure enough, was one of Marco Sadeler's heroes.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> He was robed in white like any spe=
ctre,
and the hood falling back, in the instancy of his contention with the barro=
w,
disclosed a pate as bald and yellow as a skull. He might have been buried any time=
these
thousand years, and all the lively parts of him resolved into earth and brok=
en
up with the farmer's harrow.
I was troubled besides in my mind as to
etiquette. Durst I address a =
person
who was under a vow of silence?
Clearly not. But drawi=
ng
near, I doffed my cap to him with a far-away superstitious reverence. He nodded back, and cheerfully add=
ressed
me. Was I going to the
monastery? Who was I? An Englishman? Ah, an Irishman, then?
'No,' I said, 'a Scotsman.'
A Scotsman?&n=
bsp;
Ah, he had never seen a Scotsman before. And he looked me all over, his goo=
d,
honest, brawny countenance shining with interest, as a boy might look upon a
lion or an alligator. From hi=
m I
learned with disgust that I could not be received at Our Lady of the Snows;=
I
might get a meal, perhaps, but that was all. And then, as our talk ran on, and =
it
turned out that I was not a pedlar, but a literary man, who drew landscapes=
and
was going to write a book, he changed his manner of thinking as to my recep=
tion
(for I fear they respect persons even in a Trappist monastery), and told me=
I
must be sure to ask for the Father Prior, and state my case to him in
full. On second thoughts he d=
etermined
to go down with me himself; he thought he could manage for me better. Might he say that I was a geograph=
er?
No; I thought, in the interests of truth, he
positively might not.
'Very well, then' (with disappointment), 'an
author.'
It appeared he had been in a seminary with six
young Irishmen, all priests long since, who had received newspapers and kept
him informed of the state of ecclesiastical affairs in England. And he asked me eagerly after Dr. =
Pusey,
for whose conversion the good man had continued ever since to pray night and
morning.
'I thought he was very near the truth,' he sai=
d;
'and he will reach it yet; there is so much virtue in prayer.'
He must be a stiff, ungodly Protestant who can
take anything but pleasure in this kind and hopeful story. While he was thus near the subject=
, the good
father asked me if I were a Christian; and when he found I was not, or not
after his way, he glossed it over with great good-will.
The road which we were following, and which th=
is
stalwart father had made with his own two hands within the space of a year,
came to a corner, and showed us some white buildings a little farther on be=
yond
the wood. At the same time, t=
he
bell once more sounded abroad. We
were hard upon the monastery.
Father Apollinaris (for that was my companion's name) stopped me.
'I must not speak to you down there,' he
said. 'Ask for the Brother Po=
rter,
and all will be well. But try=
to
see me as you go out again through the wood, where I may speak to you. I am charmed to have made your
acquaintance.'
And then suddenly raising his arms, flapping h=
is
fingers, and crying out twice, 'I must not speak, I must not speak!' he ran
away in front of me, and disappeared into the monastery door.
I own this somewhat ghastly eccentricity went a
good way to revive my terrors. But
where one was so good and simple, why should not all be alike? I took heart of grace, and went fo=
rward
to the gate as fast as Modestine, who seemed to have a disaffection for
monasteries, would permit. It=
was
the first door, in my acquaintance of her, which she had not shown an indec=
ent
haste to enter. I summoned the
place in form, though with a quaking heart. Father Michael, the Father Hospita=
ller,
and a pair of brown-robed brothers came to the gate and spoke with me a whi=
le. I think my sack was the great attr=
action;
it had already beguiled the heart of poor Apollinaris, who had charged me o=
n my
life to show it to the Father Prior.
But whether it was my address, or the sack, or the idea speedily
published among that part of the brotherhood who attend on strangers that I=
was
not a pedlar after all, I found no difficulty as to my reception. Modestine was led away by a layman=
to
the stables, and I and my pack were received into Our Lady of the Snows.
=
Father
Michael, a pleasant, fresh-faced, smiling man, perhaps of thirty- five, too=
k me
to the pantry, and gave me a glass of liqueur to stay me until dinner. We had some talk, or rather I shou=
ld say
he listened to my prattle indulgently enough, but with an abstracted air, l=
ike
a spirit with a thing of clay. And
truly, when I remember that I descanted principally on my appetite, and tha=
t it
must have been by that time more than eighteen hours since Father Michael h=
ad
so much as broken bread, I can well understand that he would find an earthly
savour in my conversation. Bu=
t his
manner, though superior, was exquisitely gracious; and I find I have a lurk=
ing
curiosity as to Father Michael's past.
The whet administered, I was left alone for a
little in the monastery garden.
This is no more than the main court, laid out in sandy paths and bed=
s of
parti-coloured dahlias, and with a fountain and a black statue of the Virgi=
n in
the centre. The buildings sta=
nd
around it four-square, bleak, as yet unseasoned by the years and weather, a=
nd
with no other features than a belfry and a pair of slated gables. Brothers in white, brothers in bro=
wn,
passed silently along the sanded alleys; and when I first came out, three
hooded monks were kneeling on the terrace at their prayers. A naked hill commands the monaster=
y upon
one side, and the wood commands it on the other. It lies exposed to wind; the snow =
falls
off and on from October to May, and sometimes lies six weeks on end; but if=
they
stood in Eden, with a climate like heaven's, the buildings themselves would
offer the same wintry and cheerless aspect; and for my part, on this wild
September day, before I was called to dinner, I felt chilly in and out.
When I had eaten well and heartily, Brother
Ambrose, a hearty conversible Frenchman (for all those who wait on strangers
have the liberty to speak), led me to a little room in that part of the
building which is set apart for MM. les retraitants. It was clean and whitewashed, and =
furnished
with strict necessaries, a crucifix, a bust of the late Pope, the Imitation=
in
French, a book of religious meditations, and the Life of Elizabeth Seton,
evangelist, it would appear, of North America and of New England in
particular. As far as my expe=
rience
goes, there is a fair field for some more evangelisation in these quarters;=
but
think of Cotton Mather! I sho=
uld
like to give him a reading of this little work in heaven, where I hope he
dwells; but perhaps he knows all that already, and much more; and perhaps he
and Mrs. Seton are the dearest friends, and gladly unite their voices in the
everlasting psalm. Over the t=
able,
to conclude the inventory of the room, hung a set of regulations for MM. le=
s retraitants:
what services they should attend, when they were to tell their beads or
meditate, and when they were to rise and go to rest. At the foot was a notable N.B.: 'Le
temps libre est employe a l'examen de conscience, a la confession, a faire =
de
bonnes resolutions, etc.' To =
make
good resolutions, indeed! You=
might
talk as fruitfully of making the hair grow on your head.
I had scarce explored my niche when Brother
Ambrose returned. An English =
boarder,
it appeared, would like to speak with me.&=
nbsp;
I professed my willingness, and the friar ushered in a fresh, young,
little Irishman of fifty, a deacon of the Church, arrayed in strict canonic=
als,
and wearing on his head what, in default of knowledge, I can only call the =
ecclesiastical
shako. He had lived seven yea=
rs in
retreat at a convent of nuns in Belgium, and now five at Our Lady of the Sn=
ows;
he never saw an English newspaper; he spoke French imperfectly, and had he
spoken it like a native, there was not much chance of conversation where he
dwelt. With this, he was a man eminently sociable, greedy of news, and simp=
le- minded
like a child. If I was please=
d to
have a guide about the monastery, he was no less delighted to see an English
face and hear an English tongue.
He showed me his own room, where he passed his
time among breviaries, Hebrew Bibles, and the Waverley Novels. Thence he led me to the cloisters,=
into
the chapter-house, through the vestry, where the brothers' gowns and broad
straw hats were hanging up, each with his religious name upon a board--names
full of legendary suavity and interest, such as Basil, Hilarion, Raphael, or
Pacifique; into the library, where were all the works of Veuillot and
Chateaubriand, and the Odes et Ballades, if you please, and even Moliere, to
say nothing of innumerable fathers and a great variety of local and general
historians. Thence my good Irishman took me round the workshops, where brot=
hers
bake bread, and make cartwheels, and take photographs; where one superinten=
ds a
collection of curiosities, and another a gallery of rabbits. For in a Trappist monastery each m=
onk
has an occupation of his own choice, apart from his religious duties and the
general labours of the house. Each must
sing in the choir, if he has a voice and ear, and join in the haymaking if =
he
has a hand to stir; but in his private hours, although he must be occupied,=
he
may be occupied on what he likes.
Thus I was told that one brother was engaged with literature; while
Father Apollinaris busies himself in making roads, and the Abbot employs
himself in binding books. It =
is not
so long since this Abbot was consecrated, by the way; and on that occasion,=
by
a special grace, his mother was permitted to enter the chapel and witness t=
he
ceremony of consecration. A p=
roud
day for her to have a son a mitred abbot; it makes you glad to think they l=
et her
in.
In all these journeyings to and fro, many sile=
nt
fathers and brethren fell in our way.
Usually they paid no more regard to our passage than if we had been a
cloud; but sometimes the good deacon had a permission to ask of them, and it
was granted by a peculiar movement of the hands, almost like that of a dog's
paws in swimming, or refused by the usual negative signs, and in either case
with lowered eyelids and a certain air of contrition, as of a man who was
steering very close to evil.
The monks, by special grace of their Abbot, we=
re
still taking two meals a day; but it was already time for their grand fast,
which begins somewhere in September and lasts till Easter, and during which
they eat but once in the twenty-four hours, and that at two in the afternoo=
n,
twelve hours after they have begun the toil and vigil of the day. Their meals are scanty, but even of
these they eat sparingly; and though each is allowed a small carafe of wine,
many refrain from this indulgence.
Without doubt, the most of mankind grossly overeat themselves; our m=
eals
serve not only for support, but as a hearty and natural diversion from the =
labour
of life. Yet, though excess m=
ay be
hurtful, I should have thought this Trappist regimen defective. And I am astonished, as I look bac=
k, at the
freshness of face and cheerfulness of manner of all whom I beheld. A happier nor a healthier company I
should scarce suppose that I have ever seen. As a matter of fact, on this bleak
upland, and with the incessant occupation of the monks, life is of an uncer=
tain
tenure, and death no infrequent visitor, at Our Lady of the Snows. This, at least, was what was told
me. But if they die easily, t=
hey
must live healthily in the meantime, for they seemed all firm of flesh and =
high
in colour; and the only morbid sign that I could observe, an unusual brilli=
ancy
of eye, was one that served rather to increase the general impression of
vivacity and strength.
Those with whom I spoke were singularly
sweet-tempered, with what I can only call a holy cheerfulness in air and
conversation. There is a note=
, in
the direction to visitors, telling them not to be offended at the curt spee=
ch
of those who wait upon them, since it is proper to monks to speak little. The note might have been spared; t=
o a
man the hospitallers were all brimming with innocent talk, and, in my
experience of the monastery, it was easier to begin than to break off a
conversation. With the except=
ion of
Father Michael, who was a man of the world, they showed themselves full of =
kind
and healthy interest in all sorts of subjects--in politics, in voyages, in =
my
sleeping-sack--and not without a certain pleasure in the sound of their own
voices.
As for those who are restricted to silence, I =
can
only wonder how they bear their solemn and cheerless isolation. And yet, apart from any view of
mortification, I can see a certain policy, not only in the exclusion of wom=
en,
but in this vow of silence. I=
have
had some experience of lay phalansteries, of an artistic, not to say a
bacchanalian character; and seen more than one association easily formed and
yet more easily dispersed. Wi=
th a
Cistercian rule, perhaps they might have lasted longer. In the neighbourhood of women it i=
s but
a touch-and-go association that can be formed among defenceless men; the
stronger electricity is sure to triumph; the dreams of boyhood, the schemes=
of youth,
are abandoned after an interview of ten minutes, and the arts and sciences,=
and
professional male jollity, deserted at once for two sweet eyes and a caress=
ing
accent. And next after this, =
the
tongue is the great divider.
I am almost ashamed to pursue this worldly
criticism of a religious rule; but there is yet another point in which the
Trappist order appeals to me as a model of wisdom. By two in the morning the clapper =
goes
upon the bell, and so on, hour by hour, and sometimes quarter by quarter, t=
ill eight,
the hour of rest; so infinitesimally is the day divided among different
occupations. The man who keeps
rabbits, for example, hurries from his hutches to the chapel, the chapter-r=
oom,
or the refectory, all day long: every hour he has an office to sing, a duty=
to
perform; from two, when he rises in the dark, till eight, when he returns to
receive the comfortable gift of sleep, he is upon his feet and occupied wit=
h manifold
and changing business. I know=
many
persons, worth several thousands in the year, who are not so fortunate in t=
he
disposal of their lives. Into=
how
many houses would not the note of the monastery bell, dividing the day into
manageable portions, bring peace of mind and healthful activity of body!
From this point of view, we may perhaps better
understand the monk's existence. A
long novitiate and every proof of constancy of mind and strength of body is
required before admission to the order; but I could not find that many were
discouraged. In the photograp=
her's
studio, which figures so strangely among the outbuildings, my eye was attra=
cted
by the portrait of a young fellow in the uniform of a private of foot. This was one of the novices, who c=
ame of
the age for service, and marched and drilled and mounted guard for the prop=
er
time among the garrison of Algiers.
Here was a man who had surely seen both sides of life before decidin=
g;
yet as soon as he was set free from service he returned to finish his
novitiate.
This austere rule entitles a man to heaven as =
by
right. When the Trappist sick=
ens,
he quits not his habit; he lies in the bed of death as he has prayed and
laboured in his frugal and silent existence; and when the Liberator comes, =
at
the very moment, even before they have carried him in his robe to lie his
little last in the chapel among continual chantings, joy-bells break forth,=
as
if for a marriage, from the slated belfry, and proclaim throughout the
neighbourhood that another soul has gone to God.
At night, under the conduct of my kind Irishma=
n, I
took my place in the gallery to hear compline and Salve Regina, with which =
the
Cistercians bring every day to a conclusion. There were none of those circumsta=
nces which
strike the Protestant as childish or as tawdry in the public offices of
Rome. A stern simplicity,
heightened by the romance of the surroundings, spoke directly to the
heart. I recall the whitewash=
ed chapel,
the hooded figures in the choir, the lights alternately occluded and reveal=
ed,
the strong manly singing, the silence that ensued, the sight of cowled heads
bowed in prayer, and then the clear trenchant beating of the bell, breaking=
in
to show that the last office was over and the hour of sleep had come; and w=
hen
I remember, I am not surprised that I made my escape into the court with
somewhat whirling fancies, and stood like a man bewildered in the windy sta=
rry
night.
But I was weary; and when I had quieted my spi=
rits
with Elizabeth Seton's memoirs--a dull work--the cold and the raving of the
wind among the pines (for my room was on that side of the monastery which
adjoins the woods) disposed me readily to slumber. I was wakened at black midnight, a=
s it seemed,
though it was really two in the morning, by the first stroke upon the
bell. All the brothers were t=
hen
hurrying to the chapel; the dead in life, at this untimely hour, were alrea=
dy
beginning the uncomforted labours of their day. The dead in life--there was a chil=
l reflection.
And the words of a French song came back into my memory, telling of the bes=
t of
our mixed existence:
'Que t'as de belles filles, =
Girofle!
=
Girofla!
Que t'as de belles
filles, L'Amour l=
et
comptera!'
And I blessed God that I was free to wander, f=
ree
to hope, and free to love.
=
But
there was another side to my residence at Our Lady of the Snows. At this late season there were not=
many
boarders; and yet I was not alone in the public part of the monastery. This itself is hard by the gate, wi=
th a
small dining-room on the ground-floor and a whole corridor of cells similar=
to
mine upstairs. I have stupidly
forgotten the board for a regular retraitant; but it was somewhere between
three and five francs a day, and I think most probably the first. Chance visitors like myself might =
give
what they chose as a free-will offering, but nothing was demanded. I may mention that when I was going
away, Father Michael refused twenty francs as excessive. I explained the reasoning which le=
d me
to offer him so much; but even then, from a curious point of honour, he wou=
ld
not accept it with his own hand. 'I
have no right to refuse for the monastery,' he explained, 'but I should pre=
fer
if you would give it to one of the brothers.'
I had dined alone, because I arrived late; but=
at
supper I found two other guests.
One was a country parish priest, who had walked over that morning fr=
om
the seat of his cure near Mende to enjoy four days of solitude and prayer.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> He was a grenadier in person, with=
the
hale colour and circular wrinkles of a peasant; and as he complained much of
how he had been impeded by his skirts upon the march, I have a vivid fancy =
portrait
of him, striding along, upright, big-boned, with kilted cassock, through the
bleak hills of Gevaudan. The =
other
was a short, grizzling, thick-set man, from forty-five to fifty, dressed in
tweed with a knitted spencer, and the red ribbon of a decoration in his
button-hole. This last was a =
hard
person to classify. He was an=
old
soldier, who had seen service and risen to the rank of commandant; and he
retained some of the brisk decisive manners of the camp. On the other hand, as soon as his =
resignation
was accepted, he had come to Our Lady of the Snows as a boarder, and, after=
a
brief experience of its ways, had decided to remain as a novice. Already the new life was beginning=
to
modify his appearance; already he had acquired somewhat of the quiet and
smiling air of the brethren; and he was as yet neither an officer nor a Tra=
ppist,
but partook of the character of each.
And certainly here was a man in an interesting nick of life. Out of the noise of cannon and tru=
mpets,
he was in the act of passing into this still country bordering on the grave=
, where
men sleep nightly in their grave-clothes, and, like phantoms, communicate by
signs.
At supper we talked politics. I make it my business, when I am i=
n France,
to preach political good-will and moderation, and to dwell on the example of
Poland, much as some alarmists in England dwell on the example of
Carthage. The priest and the
commandant assured me of their sympathy with all I said, and made a heavy
sighing over the bitterness of contemporary feeling.
'Why, you cannot say anything to a man with wh=
ich
he does not absolutely agree,' said I, 'but he flies up at you in a temper.=
'
They both declared that such a state of things=
was
antichristian.
While we were thus agreeing, what should my to=
ngue
stumble upon but a word in praise of Gambetta's moderation. The old soldier's countenance was
instantly suffused with blood; with the palms of his hands he beat the table
like a naughty child.
'Comment, monsieur?' he shouted. 'Comment? Gambetta moderate? Will you dare to justify these wor=
ds?'
But the priest had not forgotten the tenor of =
our
talk. And suddenly, in the he=
ight
of his fury, the old soldier found a warning look directed on his face; the
absurdity of his behaviour was brought home to him in a flash; and the storm
came to an abrupt end, without another word.
It was only in the morning, over our coffee
(Friday, September 27th), that this couple found out I was a heretic. I suppose I had misled them by some
admiring expressions as to the monastic life around us; and it was only by a
point-blank question that the truth came out. I had been tolerantly used both by
simple Father Apollinaris and astute Father Michael; and the good Irish dea=
con,
when he heard of my religious weakness, had only patted me upon the shoulder
and said, 'You must be a Catholic and come to heaven.' But I was now among a different se=
ct of orthodox. These two men were bitter and upri=
ght
and narrow, like the worst of Scotsmen, and indeed, upon my heart, I fancy =
they
were worse. The priest snorted aloud like a battle-horse.
'Et vous pretendez mourir dans cette espece de
croyance?' he demanded; and there is no type used by mortal printers large
enough to qualify his accent.
I humbly indicated that I had no design of
changing.
But he could not away with such a monstrous
attitude. 'No, no,' he cried;=
'you
must change. You have come he=
re,
God has led you here, and you must embrace the opportunity.'
I made a slip in policy; I appealed to the fam=
ily
affections, though I was speaking to a priest and a soldier, two classes of=
men
circumstantially divorced from the kind and homely ties of life.
'Your father and mother?' cried the priest.
I think I see my father's face! I would rather tackle the Gaetulia=
n lion
in his den than embark on such an enterprise against the family theologian.=
But now the hunt was up; priest and soldier we=
re
in full cry for my conversion; and the Work of the Propagation of the Faith,
for which the people of Cheylard subscribed forty-eight francs ten centimes
during 1877, was being gallantly pursued against myself. It was an odd but most effective
proselytising. They never sou=
ght to
convince me in argument, where I might have attempted some defence; but too=
k it
for granted that I was both ashamed and terrified at my position, and urged=
me
solely on the point of time. =
Now,
they said, when God had led me to Our Lady of the Snows, now was the appoin=
ted
hour.
'Do not be withheld by false shame,' observed =
the
priest, for my encouragement.
For one who feels very similarly to all sects =
of
religion, and who has never been able, even for a moment, to weigh seriously
the merit of this or that creed on the eternal side of things, however much=
he
may see to praise or blame upon the secular and temporal side, the situation
thus created was both unfair and painful.&=
nbsp;
I committed my second fault in tact, and tried to plead that it was =
all
the same thing in the end, and we were all drawing near by different sides =
to
the same kind and undiscriminating Friend and Father. That, as it seems to lay spirits, =
would
be the only gospel worthy of the name.&nbs=
p;
But different men think differently; and this revolutionary aspirati=
on
brought down the priest with all the terrors of the law. He launched into harrowing details=
of hell. The damned, he said--on the author=
ity of
a little book which he had read not a week before, and which, to add convic=
tion
to conviction, he had fully intended to bring along with him in his
pocket--were to occupy the same attitude through all eternity in the midst =
of
dismal tortures. And as he th=
us
expatiated, he grew in nobility of aspect with his enthusiasm.
As a result the pair concluded that I should s=
eek
out the Prior, since the Abbot was from home, and lay my case immediately
before him.
'C'est mon conseil comme ancien militaire,'
observed the commandant; 'et celui de monsieur comme pretre.'
'Oui,' added the cure, sententiously nodding;
'comme ancien militaire--et comme pretre.'
At this moment, whilst I was somewhat embarras=
sed
how to answer, in came one of the monks, a little brown fellow, as lively a=
s a
grig, and with an Italian accent, who threw himself at once into the
contention, but in a milder and more persuasive vein, as befitted one of th=
ese
pleasant brethren. Look at hi=
m, he
said. The rule was very hard;=
he
would have dearly liked to stay in his own country, Italy--it was well known
how beautiful it was, the beautiful Italy; but then there were no Trappists=
in
Italy; and he had a soul to save; and here he was.
I am afraid I must be at bottom, what a cheerf=
ul
Indian critic has dubbed me, 'a faddling hedonist,' for this description of=
the
brother's motives gave me somewhat of a shock. I should have preferred to think h=
e had chosen
the life for its own sake, and not for ulterior purposes; and this shows ho=
w profoundly
I was out of sympathy with these good Trappists, even when I was doing my b=
est
to sympathise. But to the cur=
e the argument
seemed decisive.
'Hear that!' he cried. 'And I have seen a marquis here, a
marquis, a marquis'--he repeated the holy word three times over--'and other
persons high in society; and generals.&nbs=
p;
And here, at your side, is this gentleman, who has been so many year=
s in
armies--decorated, an old warrior.
And here he is, ready to dedicate himself to God.'
I was by this time so thoroughly embarrassed t=
hat
I pled cold feet, and made my escape from the apartment. It was a furious windy morning, wi=
th a
sky much cleared, and long and potent intervals of sunshine; and I wandered
until dinner in the wild country towards the east, sorely staggered and bea=
ten
upon by the gale, but rewarded with some striking views.
At dinner the Work of the Propagation of the F=
aith
was recommenced, and on this occasion still more distastefully to me. The priest asked me many questions=
as to
the contemptible faith of my fathers, and received my replies with a kind of
ecclesiastical titter.
'Your sect,' he said once; 'for I think you wi=
ll
admit it would be doing it too much honour to call it a religion.'
'As you please, monsieur,' said I. 'La parole est a vous.'
At length I grew annoyed beyond endurance; and
although he was on his own ground and, what is more to the purpose, an old =
man,
and so holding a claim upon my toleration, I could not avoid a protest agai=
nst
this uncivil usage. He was sa=
dly
discountenanced.
'I assure you,' he said, 'I have no inclinatio=
n to
laugh in my heart. I have no =
other
feeling but interest in your soul.'
And there ended my conversion. Honest man! he was no dangerous
deceiver; but a country parson, full of zeal and faith. Long may he tread Gevaudan with his
kilted skirts--a man strong to walk and strong to comfort his parishioners =
in
death! I daresay he would beat
bravely through a snowstorm where his duty called him; and it is not always=
the
most faithful believer who makes the cunningest apostle.
UPPER GEVAUDAN (continued)
=
The bed was made, the room w=
as
fit, By punctual =
eve
the stars were lit; The
air was still, the water ran; No need there was for m=
aid or
man, When we put =
up, my
ass and I, At God=
's green
caravanserai.
OLD PLAY.
=
The
wind fell during dinner, and the sky remained clear; so it was under better
auspices that I loaded Modestine before the monastery gate. My Irish friend accompanied me so =
far on
the way. As we came through t=
he wood,
there was Pere Apollinaire hauling his barrow; and he too quitted his labou=
rs
to go with me for perhaps a hundred yards, holding my hand between both of =
his
in front of him. I parted fir=
st
from one and then from the other with unfeigned regret, but yet with the gl=
ee
of the traveller who shakes off the dust of one stage before hurrying forth
upon another. Then Modestine =
and I
mounted the course of the Allier, which here led us back into Gevaudan towa=
rds
its sources in the forest of Mercoire.&nbs=
p;
It was but an inconsiderable burn before we left its guidance. Thenc=
e,
over a hill, our way lay through a naked plateau, until we reached Chassera=
des
at sundown.
The company in the inn kitchen that night were=
all
men employed in survey for one of the projected railways. They were intelligent and conversi=
ble,
and we decided the future of France over hot wine, until the state of the c=
lock
frightened us to rest. There =
were
four beds in the little upstairs room; and we slept six. But I had a bed to myself, and per=
suaded
them to leave the window open.
'He, bourgeois; il est cinq heures!' was the c=
ry
that wakened me in the morning (Saturday, September 28th). The room was full of a transparent=
darkness,
which dimly showed me the other three beds and the five different nightcaps=
on
the pillows. But out of the w=
indow
the dawn was growing ruddy in a long belt over the hill-tops, and day was a=
bout
to flood the plateau. The hou=
r was
inspiriting; and there seemed a promise of calm weather, which was perfectly
fulfilled. I was soon under w=
ay with
Modestine. The road lay for a=
while
over the plateau, and then descended through a precipitous village into the
valley of the Chassezac. This stream ran among green meadows, well hidden f=
rom
the world by its steep banks; the broom was in flower, and here and there w=
as a
hamlet sending up its smoke.
At last the path crossed the Chassezac upon a
bridge, and, forsaking this deep hollow, set itself to cross the mountain o=
f La
Goulet. It wound up through
Lestampes by upland fields and woods of beech and birch, and with every cor=
ner
brought me into an acquaintance with some new interest. Even in the gully of the Chassezac=
my
ear had been struck by a noise like that of a great bass bell ringing at the
distance of many miles; but this, as I continued to mount and draw nearer to
it, seemed to change in character, and I found at length that it came from =
some
one leading flocks afield to the note of a rural horn. The narrow street of Lestampes sto=
od
full of sheep, from wall to wall--black sheep and white, bleating with one
accord like the birds in spring, and each one accompanying himself upon the
sheep-bell round his neck. It=
made
a pathetic concert, all in treble.
A little higher, and I passed a pair of men in a tree with
pruning-hooks, and one of them was singing the music of a bourree. Still further, and when I was alre=
ady
threading the birches, the crowing of cocks came cheerfully up to my ears, =
and
along with that the voice of a flute discoursing a deliberate and plaintive=
air
from one of the upland villages. I
pictured to myself some grizzled, apple-cheeked, country schoolmaster fluti=
ng
in his bit of a garden in the clear autumn sunshine. All these beautiful and interesting
sounds filled my heart with an unwonted expectation; and it appeared to me
that, once past this range which I was mounting, I should descend into the
garden of the world. Nor was I
deceived, for I was now done with rains and winds and a bleak country. The first part of my journey ended=
here;
and this was like an induction of sweet sounds into the other and more
beautiful.
There are other degrees of feyness, as of
punishment, besides the capital; and I was now led by my good spirits into =
an
adventure which I relate in the interest of future donkey-drivers. The road zigzagged so widely on the
hillside, that I chose a short cut by map and compass, and struck through t=
he
dwarf woods to catch the road again upon a higher level. It was my one serious conflict with
Modestine. She would none of =
my short
cut; she turned in my face; she backed, she reared; she, whom I had hitherto
imagined to be dumb, actually brayed with a loud hoarse flourish, like a co=
ck
crowing for the dawn. I plied=
the
goad with one hand; with the other, so steep was the ascent, I had to hold =
on
the pack- saddle. Half-a-dozen
times she was nearly over backwards on the top of me; half-a-dozen times, f=
rom
sheer weariness of spirit, I was nearly giving it up, and leading her down
again to follow the road. But=
I
took the thing as a wager, and fought it through. I was surprised, as I went on my w=
ay
again, by what appeared to be chill rain-drops falling on my hand, and more
than once looked up in wonder at the cloudless sky. But it was only sweat which came
dropping from my brow.
Over the summit of the Goulet there was no mar=
ked
road--only upright stones posted from space to space to guide the drovers.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> The turf underfoot was springy and=
well
scented. I had no company but=
a
lark or two, and met but one bullock-cart between Lestampes and Bleymard. In front of me I saw a shallow val=
ley,
and beyond that the range of the Lozere, sparsely wooded and well enough
modelled in the flanks, but straight and dull in outline. There was scarce a sign of culture=
; only
about Bleymard, the white high-road from Villefort to Mende traversed a ran=
ge
of meadows, set with spiry poplars, and sounding from side to side with the
bells of flocks and herds.
=
From
Bleymard after dinner, although it was already late, I set out to scale a
portion of the Lozere. An
ill-marked stony drove-road guided me forward; and I met nearly half-a-dozen
bullock-carts descending from the woods, each laden with a whole pine-tree =
for
the winter's firing. At the t=
op of
the woods, which do not climb very high upon this cold ridge, I struck left=
ward
by a path among the pines, until I hit on a dell of green turf, where a
streamlet made a little spout over some stones to serve me for a
water-tap. 'In a more sacred =
or
sequestered bower . . . nor nymph nor faunus haunted.' The trees were not old, but they g=
rew
thickly round the glade: there was no outlook, except north-eastward upon
distant hill- tops, or straight upward to the sky; and the encampment felt
secure and private like a room. By
the time I had made my arrangements and fed Modestine, the day was already
beginning to decline. I buckl=
ed
myself to the knees into my sack and made a hearty meal; and as soon as the=
sun
went down, I pulled my cap over my eyes and fell asleep. Night is a dead monotonous period under a roof;
but in the open world it passes lightly, with its stars and dews and perfum=
es,
and the hours are marked by changes in the face of Nature. What seems a kind of temporal deat=
h to
people choked between walls and curtains, is only a light and living slumbe=
r to
the man who sleeps afield. All
night long he can hear Nature breathing deeply and freely; even as she takes
her rest, she turns and smiles; and there is one stirring hour unknown to t=
hose
who dwell in houses, when a wakeful influence goes abroad over the sleeping=
hemisphere,
and all the outdoor world are on their feet. It is then that the cock first cro=
ws,
not this time to announce the dawn, but like a cheerful watchman speeding t=
he
course of night. Cattle awake=
on
the meadows; sheep break their fast on dewy hillsides, and change to a new =
lair
among the ferns; and houseless men, who have lain down with the fowls, open
their dim eyes and behold the beauty of the night. At what inaudible summons, at what gentle touc=
h of
Nature, are all these sleepers thus recalled in the same hour to life? Do the stars rain down an influenc=
e, or
do we share some thrill of mother earth below our resting bodies? Even shepherds and old country-fol=
k, who
are the deepest read in these arcana, have not a guess as to the means or
purpose of this nightly resurrection.
Towards two in the morning they declare the thing takes place; and
neither know nor inquire further.
And at least it is a pleasant incident. We are disturbed in our slumber on=
ly,
like the luxurious Montaigne, 'that we may the better and more sensibly rel=
ish it.' We have a moment to look upon the
stars. And there is a special=
pleasure
for some minds in the reflection that we share the impulse with all outdoor
creatures in our neighbourhood, that we have escaped out of the Bastille of
civilisation, and are become, for the time being, a mere kindly animal and a
sheep of Nature's flock. When that hour came to me among the pines, I
wakened thirsty. My tin was s=
tanding
by me half full of water. I e=
mptied
it at a draught; and feeling broad awake after this internal cold aspersion,
sat upright to make a cigarette.
The stars were clear, coloured, and jewel-like, but not frosty. A faint silvery vapour stood for t=
he
Milky Way. All around me the =
black
fir-points stood upright and stock-still.&=
nbsp;
By the whiteness of the pack-saddle, I could see Modestine walking r=
ound
and round at the length of her tether; I could hear her steadily munching at
the sward; but there was not another sound, save the indescribable quiet ta=
lk
of the runnel over the stones. I
lay lazily smoking and studying the colour of the sky, as we call the void =
of
space, from where it showed a reddish grey behind the pines to where it sho=
wed
a glossy blue-black between the stars.&nbs=
p;
As if to be more like a pedlar, I wear a silver ring. This I could see faintly shining a=
s I
raised or lowered the cigarette; and at each whiff the inside of my hand was
illuminated, and became for a second the highest light in the landscape. A faint wind, more like a moving coolness than=
a
stream of air, passed down the glade from time to time; so that even in my
great chamber the air was being renewed all night long. I thought with horror of the inn at
Chasserades and the congregated nightcaps; with horror of the nocturnal
prowesses of clerks and students, of hot theatres and pass-keys and close
rooms. I have not often enjoy=
ed a
more serene possession of myself, nor felt more independent of material
aids. The outer world, from w=
hich
we cower into our houses, seemed after all a gentle habitable place; and ni=
ght
after night a man's bed, it seemed, was laid and waiting for him in the fie=
lds,
where God keeps an open house. I
thought I had rediscovered one of those truths which are revealed to savages
and hid from political economists: at the least, I had discovered a new
pleasure for myself. And yet =
even
while I was exulting in my solitude I became aware of a strange lack. I wished a companion to lie near m=
e in
the starlight, silent and not moving, but ever within touch. For there is a fellowship more qui=
et
even than solitude, and which, rightly understood, is solitude made
perfect. And to live out of d=
oors
with the woman a man loves is of all lives the most complete and free. As I thus lay, between content and longing, a
faint noise stole towards me through the pines. I thought, at first, it was the cr=
owing
of cocks or the barking of dogs at some very distant farm; but steadily and=
gradually
it took articulate shape in my ears, until I became aware that a passenger =
was
going by upon the high-road in the valley, and singing loudly as he went. There was more of good-will than g=
race
in his performance; but he trolled with ample lungs; and the sound of his v=
oice
took hold upon the hillside and set the air shaking in the leafy glens. I have heard people passing by nig=
ht in
sleeping cities; some of them sang; one, I remember, played loudly on the
bagpipes. I have heard the ra=
ttle of
a cart or carriage spring up suddenly after hours of stillness, and pass, f=
or
some minutes, within the range of my hearing as I lay abed. There is a roma=
nce
about all who are abroad in the black hours, and with something of a thrill=
we
try to guess their business. =
But
here the romance was double: first, this glad passenger, lit internally with
wine, who sent up his voice in music through the night; and then I, on the =
other
hand, buckled into my sack, and smoking alone in the pine-woods between four
and five thousand feet towards the stars.
When I awoke again (Sunday, 29th September), m=
any
of the stars had disappeared; only the stronger companions of the night sti=
ll
burned visibly overhead; and away towards the east I saw a faint haze of li=
ght upon
the horizon, such as had been the Milky Way when I was last awake. Day was =
at
hand. I lit my lantern, and b=
y its
glow-worm light put on my boots and gaiters; then I broke up some bread for
Modestine, filled my can at the water-tap, and lit my spirit-lamp to boil
myself some chocolate. The bl=
ue
darkness lay long in the glade where I had so sweetly slumbered; but soon t=
here
was a broad streak of orange melting into gold along the mountain-tops of
Vivarais. A solemn glee posse=
ssed my
mind at this gradual and lovely coming in of day. I heard the runnel with delight; I
looked round me for something beautiful and unexpected; but the still black
pine-trees, the hollow glade, the munching ass, remained unchanged in
figure. Nothing had altered b=
ut the
light, and that, indeed, shed over all a spirit of life and of breathing pe=
ace,
and moved me to a strange exhilaration.
I drank my water-chocolate, which was hot if it
was not rich, and strolled here and there, and up and down about the
glade. While I was thus delay=
ing, a
gush of steady wind, as long as a heavy sigh, poured direct out of the quar=
ter
of the morning. It was cold, =
and
set me sneezing. The trees ne=
ar at
hand tossed their black plumes in its passage; and I could see the thin dis=
tant
spires of pine along the edge of the hill rock slightly to and fro against =
the
golden east. Ten minutes afte=
r, the
sunlight spread at a gallop along the hillside, scattering shadows and
sparkles, and the day had come completely.
I hastened to prepare my pack, and tackle the
steep ascent that lay before me; but I had something on my mind. It was only a fancy; yet a fancy w=
ill
sometimes be importunate. I h=
ad
been most hospitably received and punctually served in my green
caravanserai. The room was ai=
ry,
the water excellent, and the dawn had called me to a moment. I say nothing of the tapestries or=
the
inimitable ceiling, nor yet of the view which I commanded from the windows;=
but
I felt I was in some one's debt for all this liberal entertainment. And so it pleased me, in a half-la=
ughing
way, to leave pieces of money on the turf as I went along, until I had left
enough for my night's lodging. I
trust they did not fall to some rich and churlish drover.
=
THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS
=
We travelled in the print of=
olden
wars; =
Yet
all the land was green; =
And
love we found, and peace, Where fire and war had been. =
They pass and smile, the
children of the sword-- =
No
more the sword they wield; =
And
O, how deep the corn =
Along
the battlefield!
W. P. BANNATYNE.
=
The
track that I had followed in the evening soon died out, and I continued to
follow over a bald turf ascent a row of stone pillars, such as had conducte=
d me
across the Goulet. It was alr=
eady
warm. I tied my jacket on the=
pack,
and walked in my knitted waistcoat.
Modestine herself was in high spirits, and broke of her own accord, =
for
the first time in my experience, into a jolting trot that set the oats swas=
hing
in the pocket of my coat. The=
view,
back upon the northern Gevaudan, extended with every step; scarce a tree,
scarce a house, appeared upon the fields of wild hill that ran north, east,=
and
west, all blue and gold in the haze and sunlight of the morning. A multitude of little birds kept
sweeping and twittering about my path; they perched on the stone pillars, t=
hey
pecked and strutted on the turf, and I saw them circle in volleys in the bl=
ue
air, and show, from time to time, translucent flickering wings between the =
sun
and me.
Almost from the first moment of my march, a fa=
int
large noise, like a distant surf, had filled my ears. Sometimes I was tempted to think i=
t the
voice of a neighbouring waterfall, and sometimes a subjective result of the
utter stillness of the hill. =
But as
I continued to advance, the noise increased, and became like the hissing of=
an
enormous tea-urn, and at the same time breaths of cool air began to reach me
from the direction of the summit.
At length I understood. It
was blowing stiffly from the south upon the other slope of the Lozere, and
every step that I took I was drawing nearer to the wind. Although it had been long desired, it was quite
unexpectedly at last that my eyes rose above the summit. A step that seemed no way more dec=
isive than
many other steps that had preceded it--and, 'like stout Cortez when, with e=
agle
eyes, he stared on the Pacific,' I took possession, in my own name, of a new
quarter of the world. For beh=
old,
instead of the gross turf rampart I had been mounting for so long, a view i=
nto
the hazy air of heaven, and a land of intricate blue hills below my feet. The Lozere lies nearly east and west, cutting
Gevaudan into two unequal parts; its highest point, this Pic de Finiels, on
which I was then standing, rises upwards of five thousand six hundred feet
above the sea, and in clear weather commands a view over all lower Languedo=
c to
the Mediterranean Sea. I have
spoken with people who either pretended or believed that they had seen, from
the Pic de Finiels, white ships sailing by Montpellier and Cette. Behind was the upland northern cou=
ntry
through which my way had lain, peopled by a dull race, without wood, without
much grandeur of hill-form, and famous in the past for little beside wolves=
. But
in front of me, half veiled in sunny haze, lay a new Gevaudan, rich, pictur=
esque,
illustrious for stirring events.
Speaking largely, I was in the Cevennes at Monastier, and during all=
my
journey; but there is a strict and local sense in which only this confused =
and
shaggy country at my feet has any title to the name, and in this sense the
peasantry employ the word. Th=
ese
are the Cevennes with an emphasis: the Cevennes of the Cevennes. In that undecipherable labyrinth of
hills, a war of bandits, a war of wild beasts, raged for two years between =
the
Grand Monarch with all his troops and marshals on the one hand, and a few
thousand Protestant mountaineers upon the other. A hundred and eighty years ago, the
Camisards held a station even on the Lozere, where I stood; they had an
organisation, arsenals, a military and religious hierarchy; their affairs w=
ere
'the discourse of every coffee-house' in London; England sent fleets in the=
ir
support; their leaders prophesied and murdered; with colours and drums, and=
the
singing of old French psalms, their bands sometimes affronted daylight, mar=
ched
before walled cities, and dispersed the generals of the king; and sometimes=
at
night, or in masquerade, possessed themselves of strong castles, and avenged
treachery upon their allies and cruelty upon their foes. There, a hundred and eighty years =
ago,
was the chivalrous Roland, 'Count and Lord Roland, generalissimo of the
Protestants in France,' grave, silent, imperious, pock-marked ex-dragoon, w=
hom
a lady followed in his wanderings out of love. There was Cavalier, a baker's appr=
entice
with a genius for war, elected brigadier of Camisards at seventeen, to die =
at
fifty-five the English governor of Jersey.=
There again was Castanet, a partisan leader in a voluminous peruke a=
nd
with a taste for controversial divinity.&n=
bsp;
Strange generals, who moved apart to take counsel with the God of Ho=
sts,
and fled or offered battle, set sentinels or slept in an unguarded camp, as=
the
Spirit whispered to their hearts!
And there, to follow these and other leaders, was the rank and file =
of
prophets and disciples, bold, patient, indefatigable, hardy to run upon the
mountains, cheering their rough life with psalms, eager to fight, eager to
pray, listening devoutly to the oracles of brain-sick children, and mystica=
lly
putting a grain of wheat among the pewter balls with which they charged the=
ir
muskets. I had travelled hitherto through a dull distri=
ct,
and in the track of nothing more notable than the child-eating beast of
Gevaudan, the Napoleon Bonaparte of wolves. But now I was to go down into the =
scene
of a romantic chapter--or, better, a romantic footnote in the history of th=
e world. What was left of all this bygone d=
ust
and heroism? I was told that
Protestantism still survived in this head seat of Protestant resistance; so
much the priest himself had told me in the monastery parlour. But I had yet to learn if it were =
a bare
survival, or a lively and generous tradition. Again, if in the northern Cevennes=
the
people are narrow in religious judgments, and more filled with zeal than ch=
arity,
what was I to look for in this land of persecution and reprisal--in a land
where the tyranny of the Church produced the Camisard rebellion, and the te=
rror
of the Camisards threw the Catholic peasantry into legalised revolt upon the
other side, so that Camisard and Florentin skulked for each other's lives a=
mong
the mountains? Just on the brow of the hill, where I paused to
look before me, the series of stone pillars came abruptly to an end; and on=
ly a
little below, a sort of track appeared and began to go down a break-neck sl=
ope,
turning like a corkscrew as it went.
It led into a valley between falling hills, stubbly with rocks like a
reaped field of corn, and floored farther down with green meadows. I followed the track with precipit=
ation;
the steepness of the slope, the continual agile turning of the line of the =
descent,
and the old unwearied hope of finding something new in a new country, all
conspired to lend me wings. Y=
et a
little lower and a stream began, collecting itself together out of many
fountains, and soon making a glad noise among the hills. Sometimes it would cross the track=
in a bit
of waterfall, with a pool, in which Modestine refreshed her feet. The whole descent is like a dream to me, so
rapidly was it accomplished. I had scarcely left the summit ere the valley =
had
closed round my path, and the sun beat upon me, walking in a stagnant lowla=
nd
atmosphere. The track became a
road, and went up and down in easy undulations. I passed cabin after cabin, but all
seemed deserted; and I saw not a human creature, nor heard any sound except
that of the stream. I was, ho=
wever,
in a different country from the day before. The stony skeleton of the world wa=
s here
vigorously displayed to sun and air.
The slopes were steep and changeful. Oak-trees clung along the hills, w=
ell
grown, wealthy in leaf, and touched by the autumn with strong and luminous =
colours. Here and there another stream woul=
d fall
in from the right or the left, down a gorge of snow-white and tumultuary
boulders. The river in the bo=
ttom
(for it was rapidly growing a river, collecting on all hands as it trotted =
on its
way) here foamed a while in desperate rapids, and there lay in pools of the
most enchanting sea-green shot with watery browns. As far as I have gone, I have neve=
r seen
a river of so changeful and delicate a hue; crystal was not more clear, the
meadows were not by half so green; and at every pool I saw I felt a thrill =
of
longing to be out of these hot, dusty, and material garments, and bathe my
naked body in the mountain air and water.&=
nbsp;
All the time as I went on I never forgot it was the Sabbath; the sti=
llness
was a perpetual reminder; and I heard in spirit the church-bells clamouring=
all
over Europe, and the psalms of a thousand churches. At length a human sound struck upon my ear--a =
cry
strangely modulated between pathos and derision; and looking across the val=
ley,
I saw a little urchin sitting in a meadow, with his hands about his knees, =
and dwarfed
to almost comical smallness by the distance. But the rogue had picked me out as=
I
went down the road, from oak wood on to oak wood, driving Modestine; and he
made me the compliments of the new country in this tremulous high-pitched
salutation. And as all noises=
are
lovely and natural at a sufficient distance, this also, coming through so m=
uch
clean hill air and crossing all the green valley, sounded pleasant to my ea=
r, and
seemed a thing rustic, like the oaks or the river. A little after, the stream that I was following
fell into the Tarn at Pont de Montvert of bloody memory.
=
One of
the first things I encountered in Pont de Montvert was, if I remember right=
ly,
the Protestant temple; but this was but the type of other novelties. A subtle atmosphere distinguishes =
a town
in England from a town in France, or even in Scotland. At Carlisle you can see you are in=
the
one country; at Dumfries, thirty miles away, you are as sure that you are in
the other. I should find it
difficult to tell in what particulars Pont de Montvert differed from Monast=
ier
or Langogne, or even Bleymard; but the difference existed, and spoke eloque=
ntly
to the eyes. The place, with its houses, its lanes, its glaring river-bed, =
wore
an indescribable air of the South.
All was Sunday bustle in the streets and in the
public-house, as all had been Sabbath peace among the mountains. There must have been near a score =
of us
at dinner by eleven before noon; and after I had eaten and drunken, and sat
writing up my journal, I suppose as many more came dropping in one after
another, or by twos and threes. In
crossing the Lozere I had not only come among new natural features, but mov=
ed
into the territory of a different race.&nb=
sp;
These people, as they hurriedly despatched their viands in an intric=
ate
sword-play of knives, questioned and answered me with a degree of intellige=
nce
which excelled all that I had met, except among the railway folk at
Chasserades. They had open te=
lling
faces, and were lively both in speech and manner. They not only entered thoroughly i=
nto
the spirit of my little trip, but more than one declared, if he were rich
enough, he would like to set forth on such another.
Even physically there was a pleasant change. I had not seen a pretty woman sinc=
e I
left Monastier, and there but one.
Now of the three who sat down with me to dinner, one was certainly n=
ot
beautiful--a poor timid thing of forty, quite troubled at this roaring table
d'hote, whom I squired and helped to wine, and pledged and tried generally =
to
encourage, with quite a contrary effect; but the other two, both married, w=
ere
both more handsome than the average of women. And Clarisse? What shall I say of Clarisse? She waited the table with a heavy
placable nonchalance, like a performing cow; her great grey eyes were steep=
ed
in amorous languor; her features, although fleshy, were of an original and
accurate design; her mouth had a curl; her nostril spoke of dainty pride; h=
er cheek
fell into strange and interesting lines.&n=
bsp;
It was a face capable of strong emotion, and, with training, it offe=
red
the promise of delicate sentiment.
It seemed pitiful to see so good a model left to country admirers an=
d a
country way of thought. Beauty
should at least have touched society; then, in a moment, it throws off a we=
ight
that lay upon it, it becomes conscious of itself, it puts on an elegance,
learns a gait and a carriage of the head, and, in a moment, patet dea. Before I left I assured Clarisse o=
f my
hearty admiration. She took i=
t like
milk, without embarrassment or wonder, merely looking at me steadily with h=
er
great eyes; and I own the result upon myself was some confusion. If Clarisse could read English, I =
should
not dare to add that her figure was unworthy of her face. Hers was a case for stays; but tha=
t may
perhaps grow better as she gets up in years.
Pont de Montvert, or Greenhill Bridge, as we m=
ight
say at home, is a place memorable in the story of the Camisards. It was here that the war broke out=
; here
that those southern Covenanters slew their Archbishop Sharp. The persecution on the one hand, t=
he
febrile enthusiasm on the other, are almost equally difficult to understand=
in
these quiet modern days, and with our easy modern beliefs and disbeliefs. The Protestants were one and all b=
eside
their right minds with zeal and sorrow.&nb=
sp;
They were all prophets and prophetesses. Children at the breast would exhor=
t their
parents to good works. 'A chi=
ld of
fifteen months at Quissac spoke from its mother's arms, agitated and sobbin=
g,
distinctly and with a loud voice.'
Marshal Villars has seen a town where all the women 'seemed possesse=
d by
the devil,' and had trembling fits, and uttered prophecies publicly upon the
streets. A prophetess of Viva=
rais
was hanged at Montpellier because blood flowed from her eyes and nose, and =
she
declared that she was weeping tears of blood for the misfortunes of the Pro=
testants. And it was not only women and
children. Stalwart dangerous =
fellows,
used to swing the sickle or to wield the forest axe, were likewise shaken w=
ith
strange paroxysms, and spoke oracles with sobs and streaming tears. A persecution unsurpassed in viole=
nce
had lasted near a score of years, and this was the result upon the persecut=
ed;
hanging, burning, breaking on the wheel, had been in vain; the dragoons had
left their hoof-marks over all the countryside; there were men rowing in th=
e galleys,
and women pining in the prisons of the Church; and not a thought was change=
d in
the heart of any upright Protestant.
Now the head and forefront of the
persecution--after Lamoignon de Bavile--Francois de Langlade du Chayla
(pronounce Cheila), Archpriest of the Cevennes and Inspector of Missions in=
the
same country, had a house in which he sometimes dwelt in the town of Pont de
Montvert. He was a conscienti=
ous
person, who seems to have been intended by nature for a pirate, and now
fifty-five, an age by which a man has learned all the moderation of which h=
e is
capable. A missionary in his =
youth
in China, he there suffered martyrdom, was left for dead, and only succoured
and brought back to life by the charity of a pariah. We must suppose the pariah devoid =
of
second-sight, and not purposely malicious in this act. Such an experience, =
it
might be thought, would have cured a man of the desire to persecute; but the
human spirit is a thing strangely put together; and, having been a Christian
martyr, Du Chayla became a Christian persecutor. The Work of the Propagation of the=
Faith
went roundly forward in his hands.
His house in Pont de Montvert served him as a prison. There he closed the hands of his
prisoners upon live coal, and plucked out the hairs of their beards, to
convince them that they were deceived in their opinions. And yet had not he himself tried a=
nd proved
the inefficacy of these carnal arguments among the Buddhists in China?
Not only was life made intolerable in Languedo=
c,
but flight was rigidly forbidden.
One Massip, a muleteer, and well acquainted with the mountain- paths,
had already guided several troops of fugitives in safety to Geneva; and on =
him,
with another convoy, consisting mostly of women dressed as men, Du Chayla, =
in
an evil hour for himself, laid his hands. The Sunday following, there was a
conventicle of Protestants in the woods of Altefage upon Mount Bouges; where
there stood up one Seguier--Spirit Seguier, as his companions called him--a
wool-carder, tall, black-faced, and toothless, but a man full of prophecy.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> He declared, in the name of God, t=
hat
the time for submission had gone by, and they must betake themselves to arms
for the deliverance of their brethren and the destruction of the priests.
The next night, 24th July 1702, a sound distur=
bed
the Inspector of Missions as he sat in his prison-house at Pont de Montvert:
the voices of many men upraised in psalmody drew nearer and nearer through =
the
town. It was ten at night; he=
had
his court about him, priests, soldiers, and servants, to the number of twel=
ve
or fifteen; and now dreading the insolence of a conventicle below his very
windows, he ordered forth his soldiers to report. But the psalm-singers were already=
at
his door, fifty strong, led by the inspired Seguier, and breathing death. To their summons, the archpriest m=
ade
answer like a stout old persecutor, and bade his garrison fire upon the
mob. One Camisard (for, accor=
ding
to some, it was in this night's work that they came by the name) fell at th=
is discharge:
his comrades burst in the door with hatchets and a beam of wood, overran the
lower story of the house, set free the prisoners, and finding one of them in
the vine, a sort of Scavenger's Daughter of the place and period, redoubled=
in
fury against Du Chayla, and sought by repeated assaults to carry the upper
floors. But he, on his side, =
had given
absolution to his men, and they bravely held the staircase.
'Children of God,' cried the prophet, 'hold yo=
ur
hands. Let us burn the house,=
with
the priest and the satellites of Baal.'
The fire caught readily. Out of an upper window Du Chayla a=
nd his
men lowered themselves into the garden by means of knotted sheets; some esc=
aped
across the river under the bullets of the insurgents; but the archpriest
himself fell, broke his thigh, and could only crawl into the hedge. What were his reflections as this =
second
martyrdom drew near? A poor, =
brave,
besotted, hateful man, who had done his duty resolutely according to his li=
ght
both in the Cevennes and China. He
found at least one telling word to say in his defence; for when the roof fe=
ll
in and the upbursting flames discovered his retreat, and they came and drag=
ged
him to the public place of the town, raging and calling him damned--'If I b=
e damned,'
said he, 'why should you also damn yourselves?'
Here was a good reason for the last; but in the
course of his inspectorship he had given many stronger which all told in a
contrary direction; and these he was now to hear. One by one, Seguier first, the Cam=
isards
drew near and stabbed him. 'T=
his,'
they said, 'is for my father broken on the wheel. This for my brother in the galleys=
. That for my mother or my sister
imprisoned in your cursed convents.'
Each gave his blow and his reason; and then all kneeled and sang psa=
lms
around the body till the dawn. With
the dawn, still singing, they defiled away towards Frugeres, farther up the
Tarn, to pursue the work of vengeance, leaving Du Chayla's prison-house in
ruins, and his body pierced with two- and-fifty wounds upon the public plac=
e.
'Tis a wild night's work, with its accompanime=
nt
of psalms; and it seems as if a psalm must always have a sound of threateni=
ng
in that town upon the Tarn. B=
ut the
story does not end, even so far as concerns Pont de Montvert, with the
departure of the Camisards. T=
he
career of Seguier was brief and bloody.&nb=
sp;
Two more priests and a whole family at Ladeveze, from the father to =
the
servants, fell by his hand or by his orders; and yet he was but a day or tw=
o at
large, and restrained all the time by the presence of the soldiery. Taken at length by a famous soldie=
r of fortune,
Captain Poul, he appeared unmoved before his judges.
'Your name?' they asked.
'Pierre Seguier.'
'Why are you called Spirit?'
'Because the Spirit of the Lord is with me.'
'Your domicile?'
'Lately in the desert, and soon in heaven.'
'Have you no remorse for your crimes?'
'I have committed none. My soul is like a garden full of s=
helter
and of fountains.'
At Pont de Montvert, on the 12th of August, he=
had
his right hand stricken from his body, and was burned alive. And his soul was like a garden?
Du Chayla's house still stands, with a new roo=
f,
beside one of the bridges of the town; and if you are curious you may see t=
he terrace-garden
into which he dropped.
=
A new
road leads from Pont de Montvert to Florac by the valley of the Tarn; a smo=
oth
sandy ledge, it runs about half-way between the summit of the cliffs and the
river in the bottom of the valley; and I went in and out, as I followed it,
from bays of shadow into promontories of afternoon sun. This was a pass like that of
Killiecrankie; a deep turning gully in the hills, with the Tarn making a wo=
nderful
hoarse uproar far below, and craggy summits standing in the sunshine high
above. A thin fringe of ash- =
trees
ran about the hill-tops, like ivy on a ruin; but on the lower slopes, and f=
ar
up every glen, the Spanish chestnut-trees stood each four- square to heaven
under its tented foliage. Som=
e were
planted, each on its own terrace no larger than a bed; some, trusting in th=
eir
roots, found strength to grow and prosper and be straight and large upon th=
e rapid
slopes of the valley; others, where there was a margin to the river, stood
marshalled in a line and mighty like cedars of Lebanon. Yet even where they grew most thic=
kly
they were not to be thought of as a wood, but as a herd of stalwart
individuals; and the dome of each tree stood forth separate and large, and =
as
it were a little hill, from among the domes of its companions. They gave forth a faint sweet perf=
ume
which pervaded the air of the afternoon; autumn had put tints of gold and t=
arnish
in the green; and the sun so shone through and kindled the broad foliage, t=
hat
each chestnut was relieved against another, not in shadow, but in light.
I wish I could convey a notion of the growth of
these noble trees; of how they strike out boughs like the oak, and trail sp=
rays
of drooping foliage like the willow; of how they stand on upright fluted
columns like the pillars of a church; or like the olive, from the most
shattered bole can put out smooth and youthful shoots, and begin a new life
upon the ruins of the old. Th=
us
they partake of the nature of many different trees; and even their prickly
top-knots, seen near at hand against the sky, have a certain palm-like air =
that
impresses the imagination. But
their individuality, although compounded of so many elements, is but the ri=
cher
and the more original. And to=
look
down upon a level filled with these knolls of foliage, or to see a clan of =
old
unconquerable chestnuts cluster 'like herded elephants' upon the spur of a
mountain, is to rise to higher thoughts of the powers that are in Nature.
Between Modestine's laggard humour and the bea=
uty
of the scene, we made little progress all that afternoon; and at last findi=
ng
the sun, although still far from setting, was already beginning to desert t=
he
narrow valley of the Tarn, I began to cast about for a place to camp in.
After perhaps a mile, I saw, some sixty feet a=
bove
the road, a little plateau large enough to hold my sack, and securely parap=
eted
by the trunk of an aged and enormous chestnut. Thither, with infinite trouble, I =
goaded
and kicked the reluctant Modestine, and there I hastened to unload her. There was only room for myself upo=
n the
plateau, and I had to go nearly as high again before I found so much as
standing-room for the ass. It was on a heap of rolling stones, on an artifi=
cial
terrace, certainly not five feet square in all. Here I tied her to a chestnut, and
having given her corn and bread and made a pile of chestnut-leaves, of whic=
h I found
her greedy, I descended once more to my own encampment.
The position was unpleasantly exposed. One or two carts went by upon the =
road;
and as long as daylight lasted I concealed myself, for all the world like a
hunted Camisard, behind my fortification of vast chestnut trunk; for I was
passionately afraid of discovery and the visit of jocular persons in the
night. Moreover, I saw that I=
must
be early awake; for these chestnut gardens had been the scene of industry n=
o further
gone than on the day before. =
The
slope was strewn with lopped branches, and here and there a great package of
leaves was propped against a trunk; for even the leaves are serviceable, and
the peasants use them in winter by way of fodder for their animals. I picked a meal in fear and trembl=
ing,
half lying down to hide myself from the road; and I daresay I was as much
concerned as if I had been a scout from Joani's band above upon the Lozere,=
or
from Salomon's across the Tarn, in the old times of psalm-singing and
blood. Or, indeed, perhaps mo=
re;
for the Camisards had a remarkable confidence in God; and a tale comes back
into my memory of how the Count of Gevaudan, riding with a party of dragoon=
s and
a notary at his saddlebow to enforce the oath of fidelity in all the country
hamlets, entered a valley in the woods, and found Cavalier and his men at
dinner, gaily seated on the grass, and their hats crowned with box-tree
garlands, while fifteen women washed their linen in the stream. Such was a
field festival in 1703; at that date Antony Watteau would be painting simil=
ar
subjects.
This was a very different camp from that of the
night before in the cool and silent pine-woods. It was warm and even stifling in t=
he
valley. The shrill song of fr=
ogs,
like the tremolo note of a whistle with a pea in it, rang up from the
river-side before the sun was down.
In the growing dusk, faint rustlings began to run to and fro among t=
he
fallen leaves; from time to time a faint chirping or cheeping noise would f=
all
upon my ear; and from time to time I thought I could see the movement of so=
mething
swift and indistinct between the chestnuts. A profusion of large ants swarmed =
upon
the ground; bats whisked by, and mosquitoes droned overhead. The long boughs with their bunches=
of
leaves hung against the sky like garlands; and those immediately above and
around me had somewhat the air of a trellis which should have been wrecked =
and
half overthrown in a gale of wind.
Sleep for a long time fled my eyelids; and jus=
t as
I was beginning to feel quiet stealing over my limbs, and settling densely =
on
my mind, a noise at my head startled me broad awake again, and, I will fran=
kly confess
it, brought my heart into my mouth.
It was such a noise as a person would make
scratching loudly with a finger-nail; it came from under the knapsack which
served me for a pillow, and it was thrice repeated before I had time to sit=
up
and turn about. Nothing was t=
o be
seen, nothing more was to be heard, but a few of these mysterious rustlings=
far
and near, and the ceaseless accompaniment of the river and the frogs. I learned next day that the chestn=
ut
gardens are infested by rats; rustling, chirping, and scraping were probably
all due to these; but the puzzle, for the moment, was insoluble, and I had =
to
compose myself for sleep, as best I could, in wondering uncertainty about my
neighbours.
I was wakened in the grey of the morning (Mond=
ay,
30th September) by the sound of foot-steps not far off upon the stones, and
opening my eyes, I beheld a peasant going by among the chestnuts by a footp=
ath
that I had not hitherto observed.
He turned his head neither to the right nor to the left, and disappe=
ared
in a few strides among the foliage.
Here was an escape! Bu=
t it
was plainly more than time to be moving.&n=
bsp;
The peasantry were abroad; scarce less terrible to me in my nondescr=
ipt position
than the soldiers of Captain Poul to an undaunted Camisard. I fed Modestine with what haste I =
could;
but as I was returning to my sack, I saw a man and a boy come down the hill=
side
in a direction crossing mine. They
unintelligibly hailed me, and I replied with inarticulate but cheerful soun=
ds,
and hurried forward to get into my gaiters.
The pair, who seemed to be father and son, came
slowly up to the plateau, and stood close beside me for some time in
silence. The bed was open, an=
d I
saw with regret my revolver lying patently disclosed on the blue wool. At last, after they had looked me =
all
over, and the silence had grown laughably embarrassing, the man demanded in
what seemed unfriendly tones:
'You have slept here?'
'Yes,' said I. 'As you see.'
'Why?' he asked.
'My faith,' I answered lightly, 'I was tired.'=
He next inquired where I was going and what I =
had
had for dinner; and then, without the least transition, 'C'est bien,' he ad=
ded,
'come along.' And he and his son, without another word, turned off to the n=
ext chestnut-
tree but one, which they set to pruning.&n=
bsp;
The thing had passed of more simply than I hoped. He was a grave, respectable man; a=
nd his
unfriendly voice did not imply that he thought he was speaking to a crimina=
l,
but merely to an inferior.
I was soon on the road, nibbling a cake of
chocolate and seriously occupied with a case of conscience. Was I to pay for my night's lodgin=
g? I
had slept ill, the bed was full of fleas in the shape of ants, there was no
water in the room, the very dawn had neglected to call me in the morning. I might have missed a train, had t=
here
been any in the neighbourhood to catch.&nb=
sp;
Clearly, I was dissatisfied with my entertainment; and I decided I
should not pay unless I met a beggar.
The valley looked even lovelier by morning; and
soon the road descended to the level of the river. Here, in a place where many straig=
ht and
prosperous chestnuts stood together, making an aisle upon a swarded terrace=
, I
made my morning toilette in the water of the Tarn. It was marvellously clear, thrilli=
ngly
cool; the soap-suds disappeared as if by magic in the swift current, and the
white boulders gave one a model for cleanliness. To wash in one of God's rivers in =
the
open air seems to me a sort of cheerful solemnity or semi-pagan act of wors=
hip. To dabble among dishes in a bedroo=
m may
perhaps make clean the body; but the imagination takes no share in such a
cleansing. I went on with a l=
ight and
peaceful heart, and sang psalms to the spiritual ear as I advanced.
Suddenly up came an old woman, who point-blank
demanded alms.
'Good,' thought I; 'here comes the waiter with=
the
bill.'
And I paid for my night's lodging on the spot. Take it how you please,= but this was the first and the last beggar that I met with during all my tour.<= o:p>
A step or two farther I was overtaken by an old
man in a brown nightcap, clear-eyed, weather-beaten, with a faint excited
smile. A little girl followed=
him,
driving two sheep and a goat; but she kept in our wake, while the old man
walked beside me and talked about the morning and the valley. It was not much past six; and for
healthy people who have slept enough, that is an hour of expansion and of o=
pen
and trustful talk.
'Connaissez-vous le Seigneur?' he said at leng=
th.
I asked him what Seigneur he meant; but he only
repeated the question with more emphasis and a look in his eyes denoting ho=
pe
and interest.
'Ah,' said I, pointing upwards, 'I understand =
you
now. Yes, I know Him; He is t=
he
best of acquaintances.'
The old man said he was delighted. 'Hold,' he added, striking his bos=
om; 'it
makes me happy here.' There w=
ere a
few who knew the Lord in these valleys, he went on to tell me; not many, bu=
t a
few. 'Many are called,' he qu=
oted,
'and few chosen.'
'My father,' said I, 'it is not easy to say who
know the Lord; and it is none of our business. Protestants and Catholics, and even
those who worship stones, may know Him and be known by Him; for He has made
all.'
I did not know I was so good a preacher.
The old man assured me he thought as I did, and
repeated his expressions of pleasure at meeting me. 'We are so few,' he said. 'They call us Moravians here; but =
down
in the Department of Gard, where there are also a good number, they are cal=
led
Derbists, after an English pastor.'
I began to understand that I was figuring, in
questionable taste, as a member of some sect to me unknown; but I was more
pleased with the pleasure of my companion than embarrassed by my own equivo=
cal
position. Indeed, I can see no dishonesty in not avowing a difference; and =
especially
in these high matters, where we have all a sufficient assurance that, whoev=
er
may be in the wrong, we ourselves are not completely in the right. The truth is much talked about; bu=
t this
old man in a brown nightcap showed himself so simple, sweet, and friendly, =
that
I am not unwilling to profess myself his convert. He was, as a matter of fact, a Ply=
mouth
Brother. Of what that involve=
s in
the way of doctrine I have no idea nor the time to inform myself; but I know
right well that we are all embarked upon a troublesome world, the children =
of one
Father, striving in many essential points to do and to become the same. And although it was somewhat in a
mistake that he shook hands with me so often and showed himself so ready to
receive my words, that was a mistake of the truth-finding sort. For charity begins blindfold; and =
only
through a series of similar misapprehensions rises at length into a settled
principle of love and patience, and a firm belief in all our fellow-men.
Thus, talking like Christian and Faithful by t=
he
way, he and I came down upon a hamlet by the Tarn. It was but a humble place, called =
La
Vernede, with less than a dozen houses, and a Protestant chapel on a
knoll. Here he dwelt; and her=
e, at
the inn, I ordered my breakfast.
The inn was kept by an agreeable young man, a stone-breaker on the r=
oad,
and his sister, a pretty and engaging girl. The village schoolmaster dropped i=
n to
speak with the stranger. And =
these
were all Protestants--a fact which pleased me more than I should have expec=
ted;
and, what pleased me still more, they seemed all upright and simple
people. The Plymouth Brother =
hung round
me with a sort of yearning interest, and returned at least thrice to make s=
ure
I was enjoying my meal. His
behaviour touched me deeply at the time, and even now moves me in
recollection. He feared to in=
trude,
but he would not willingly forego one moment of my society; and he seemed n=
ever
weary of shaking me by the hand.
When all the rest had drifted off to their day=
's
work, I sat for near half an hour with the young mistress of the house, who
talked pleasantly over her seam of the chestnut harvest, and the beauties of
the Tarn, and old family affections, broken up when young folk go from home,
yet still subsisting. Hers, I=
am
sure, was a sweet nature, with a country plainness and much delicacy
underneath; and he who takes her to his heart will doubtless be a fortunate
young man.
The valley below La Vernede pleased me more and
more as I went forward. Now the hills approached from either hand, naked and
crumbling, and walled in the river between cliffs; and now the valley widen=
ed
and became green. The road le=
d me
past the old castle of Miral on a steep; past a battlemented monastery, long
since broken up and turned into a church and parsonage; and past a cluster =
of
black roofs, the village of Cocures, sitting among vineyards, and meadows, =
and
orchards thick with red apples, and where, along the highway, they were
knocking down walnuts from the roadside trees, and gathering them in sacks =
and
baskets. The hills, however m=
uch
the vale might open, were still tall and bare, with cliffy battlements and =
here
and there a pointed summit; and the Tarn still rattled through the stones w=
ith
a mountain noise. I had been =
led,
by bagmen of a picturesque turn of mind, to expect a horrific country after=
the
heart of Byron; but to my Scottish eyes it seemed smiling and plentiful, as=
the
weather still gave an impression of high summer to my Scottish body; althou=
gh
the chestnuts were already picked out by the autumn, and the poplars, that =
here
began to mingle with them, had turned into pale gold against the approach of
winter.
There was something in this landscape, smiling
although wild, that explained to me the spirit of the Southern
Covenanters. Those who took t=
o the
hills for conscience' sake in Scotland had all gloomy and bedevilled though=
ts;
for once that they received God's comfort they would be twice engaged with
Satan; but the Camisards had only bright and supporting visions. They dealt much more in blood, both
given and taken; yet I find no obsession of the Evil One in their records.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> With a light conscience, they purs=
ued
their life in these rough times and circumstances. The soul of Seguier, let us not fo=
rget,
was like a garden. They knew =
they
were on God's side, with a knowledge that has no parallel among the Scots; =
for
the Scots, although they might be certain of the cause, could never rest
confident of the person.
'We flew,' says one old Camisard, 'when we hea=
rd
the sound of psalm-singing, we flew as if with wings. We felt within us an animating ard=
our, a
transporting desire. The feel=
ing
cannot be expressed in words. It is a thing that must have been experienced=
to
be understood. However weary =
we
might be, we thought no more of our weariness, and grew light so soon as the
psalms fell upon our ears.'
The valley of the Tarn and the people whom I m=
et
at La Vernede not only explain to me this passage, but the twenty years of
suffering which those, who were so stiff and so bloody when once they betook
themselves to war, endured with the meekness of children and the constancy =
of
saints and peasants.
=
On a
branch of the Tarn stands Florac, the seat of a sub-prefecture, with an old=
castle,
an alley of planes, many quaint street-corners, and a live fountain welling
from the hill. It is notable,
besides, for handsome women, and as one of the two capitals, Alais being the
other, of the country of the Camisards.
The landlord of the inn took me, after I had
eaten, to an adjoining cafe, where I, or rather my journey, became the topi=
c of
the afternoon. Every one had =
some
suggestion for my guidance; and the sub-prefectorial map was fetched from t=
he
sub-prefecture itself, and much thumbed among coffee- cups and glasses of
liqueur. Most of these kind
advisers were Protestant, though I observed that Protestant and Catholic
intermingled in a very easy manner; and it surprised me to see what a lively
memory still subsisted of the religious war. Among the hills of the south-west,=
by
Mauchline, Cumnock, or Carsphairn, in isolated farms or in the manse, serio=
us
Presbyterian people still recall the days of the great persecution, and the
graves of local martyrs are still piously regarded. But in towns and among =
the
so-called better classes, I fear that these old doings have become an idle
tale. If you met a mixed comp=
any in
the King's Arms at Wigton, it is not likely that the talk would run on Cove=
nanters. Nay, at Muirkirk of Glenluce, I fo=
und
the beadle's wife had not so much as heard of Prophet Peden. But these Cevenols were proud of t=
heir
ancestors in quite another sense; the war was their chosen topic; its explo=
its
were their own patent of nobility; and where a man or a race has had but one
adventure, and that heroic, we must expect and pardon some prolixity of
reference. They told me the c=
ountry
was still full of legends hitherto uncollected; I heard from them about
Cavalier's descendants--not direct descendants, be it understood, but only
cousins or nephews--who were still prosperous people in the scene of the bo=
y-general's
exploits; and one farmer had seen the bones of old combatants dug up into t=
he
air of an afternoon in the nineteenth century, in a field where the ancesto=
rs
had fought, and the great-grandchildren were peaceably ditching.
Later in the day one of the Protestant pastors=
was
so good as to visit me: a young man, intelligent and polite, with whom I pa=
ssed
an hour or two in talk. Flora=
c, he
told me, is part Protestant, part Catholic; and the difference in religion =
is
usually doubled by a difference in politics. You may judge of my surprise, comi=
ng as
I did from such a babbling purgatorial Poland of a place as Monastier, when=
I
learned that the population lived together on very quiet terms; and there w=
as
even an exchange of hospitalities between households thus doubly
separated. Black Camisard and=
White
Camisard, militiaman and Miquelet and dragoon, Protestant prophet and Catho=
lic
cadet of the White Cross, they had all been sabring and shooting, burning,
pillaging, and murdering, their hearts hot with indignant passion; and here,
after a hundred and seventy years, Protestant is still Protestant, Catholic
still Catholic, in mutual toleration and mild amity of life. But the race of man, like that ind=
omitable
nature whence it sprang, has medicating virtues of its own; the years and
seasons bring various harvests; the sun returns after the rain; and mankind
outlives secular animosities, as a single man awakens from the passions of a
day. We judge our ancestors f=
rom a
more divine position; and the dust being a little laid with several centuri=
es,
we can see both sides adorned with human virtues and fighting with a show o=
f right.
I have never thought it easy to be just, and f=
ind
it daily even harder than I thought.
I own I met these Protestants with a delight and a sense of coming
home. I was accustomed to spe=
ak
their language, in another and deeper sense of the word than that which
distinguishes between French and English; for the true Babel is a divergence
upon morals. And hence I coul=
d hold
more free communication with the Protestants, and judge them more justly, t=
han
the Catholics. Father Apollin=
aris
may pair off with my mountain Plymouth Brother as two guileless and devout =
old
men; yet I ask myself if I had as ready a feeling for the virtues of the
Trappist; or, had I been a Catholic, if I should have felt so warmly to the
dissenter of La Vernede. With=
the
first I was on terms of mere forbearance; but with the other, although only=
on
a misunderstanding and by keeping on selected points, it was still possible=
to
hold converse and exchange some honest thoughts. In this world of imperfection we g=
ladly
welcome even partial intimacies.
And if we find but one to whom we can speak out of our heart freely,
with whom we can walk in love and simplicity without dissimulation, we have=
no
ground of quarrel with the world or God.
=
On
Tuesday, 1st October, we left Florac late in the afternoon, a tired donkey =
and
tired donkey-driver. A little=
way
up the Tarnon, a covered bridge of wood introduced us into the valley of the
Mimente. Steep rocky red moun=
tains
overhung the stream; great oaks and chestnuts grew upon the slopes or in st=
ony
terraces; here and there was a red field of millet or a few apple-trees stu=
dded
with red apples; and the road passed hard by two black hamlets, one with an=
old
castle atop to please the heart of the tourist.
It was difficult here again to find a spot fit=
for
my encampment. Even under the=
oaks
and chestnuts the ground had not only a very rapid slope, but was heaped wi=
th
loose stones; and where there was no timber the hills descended to the stre=
am
in a red precipice tufted with heather.&nb=
sp;
The sun had left the highest peak in front of me, and the valley was
full of the lowing sound of herdsmen's horns as they recalled the flocks in=
to
the stable, when I spied a bight of meadow some way below the roadway in an=
angle
of the river. Thither I desce=
nded,
and, tying Modestine provisionally to a tree, proceeded to investigate the
neighbourhood. A grey pearly
evening shadow filled the glen; objects at a little distance grew indistinct
and melted bafflingly into each other; and the darkness was rising steadily
like an exhalation. I approac=
hed a
great oak which grew in the meadow, hard by the river's brink; when to my
disgust the voices of children fell upon my ear, and I beheld a house round=
the
angle on the other bank. I ha=
d half
a mind to pack and be gone again, but the growing darkness moved me to
remain. I had only to make no=
noise
until the night was fairly come, and trust to the dawn to call me early in =
the morning. But it was hard to be annoyed by
neighbours in such a great hotel.
A hollow underneath the oak was my bed. Before I had fed Modestine and arr=
anged
my sack, three stars were already brightly shining, and the others were
beginning dimly to appear. I
slipped down to the river, which looked very black among its rocks, to fill=
my
can; and dined with a good appetite in the dark, for I scrupled to light a
lantern while so near a house. The
moon, which I had seen a pallid crescent all afternoon, faintly illuminated=
the
summit of the hills, but not a ray fell into the bottom of the glen where I=
was
lying. The oak rose before me=
like
a pillar of darkness; and overhead the heartsome stars were set in the face=
of
the night. No one knows the s=
tars
who has not slept, as the French happily put it, a la belle etoile. He may know all their names and
distances and magnitudes, and yet be ignorant of what alone concerns
mankind,--their serene and gladsome influence on the mind. The greater part of poetry is abou=
t the
stars; and very justly, for they are themselves the most classical of
poets. These same far-away wo=
rlds, sprinkled
like tapers or shaken together like a diamond dust upon the sky, had looked=
not
otherwise to Roland or Cavalier, when, in the words of the latter, they had=
'no
other tent but the sky, and no other bed than my mother earth.'
All night a strong wind blew up the valley, and
the acorns fell pattering over me from the oak. Yet, on this first night of Octobe=
r, the
air was as mild as May, and I slept with the fur thrown back.
I was much disturbed by the barking of a dog, =
an
animal that I fear more than any wolf.&nbs=
p;
A dog is vastly braver, and is besides supported by the sense of
duty. If you kill a wolf, you=
meet
with encouragement and praise; but if you kill a dog, the sacred rights of
property and the domestic affections come clamouring round you for
redress. At the end of a fagg=
ing
day, the sharp cruel note of a dog's bark is in itself a keen annoyance; an=
d to
a tramp like myself, he represents the sedentary and respectable world in i=
ts
most hostile form. There is
something of the clergyman or the lawyer about this engaging animal; and if=
he
were not amenable to stones, the boldest man would shrink from travelling
afoot. I respect dogs much in=
the
domestic circle; but on the highway, or sleeping afield, I both detest and =
fear
them.
I was wakened next morning (Wednesday, October
2nd) by the same dog--for I knew his bark--making a charge down the bank, a=
nd
then, seeing me sit up, retreating again with great alacrity. The stars were not yet quite extin=
guished. The heaven was of that enchanting =
mild
grey-blue of the early morn. A
still clear light began to fall, and the trees on the hillside were outlined
sharply against the sky. The =
wind
had veered more to the north, and no longer reached me in the glen; but as I
was going on with my preparations, it drove a white cloud very swiftly over=
the
hill- top; and looking up, I was surprised to see the cloud dyed with
gold. In these high regions o=
f the
air, the sun was already shining as at noon. If only the clouds travelled high
enough, we should see the same thing all night long. For it is always daylight in the f=
ields
of space.
As I began to go up the valley, a draught of w=
ind
came down it out of the seat of the sunrise, although the clouds continued =
to
run overhead in an almost contrary direction. A few steps farther, and I saw a w=
hole hillside
gilded with the sun; and still a little beyond, between two peaks, a centre=
of
dazzling brilliancy appeared floating in the sky, and I was once more face =
to
face with the big bonfire that occupies the kernel of our system.
I met but one human being that forenoon, a dark
military-looking wayfarer, who carried a game-bag on a baldric; but he made=
a
remark that seems worthy of record.
For when I asked him if he were Protestant or Catholic--
'Oh,' said he, 'I make no shame of my religion=
. I am a Catholic.'
He made no shame of it! The phrase is a piece of natural
statistics; for it is the language of one in a minority. I thought with a smile of Bavile a=
nd his
dragoons, and how you may ride rough-shod over a religion for a century, an=
d leave
it only the more lively for the friction. Ireland is still Catholic; the
Cevennes still Protestant. It=
is
not a basketful of law-papers, nor the hoofs and pistol-butts of a regiment=
of horse,
that can change one tittle of a ploughman's thoughts. Outdoor rustic people have not many
ideas, but such as they have are hardy plants, and thrive flourishingly in
persecution. One who has grow=
n a long
while in the sweat of laborious noons, and under the stars at night, a
frequenter of hills and forests, an old honest countryman, has, in the end,=
a
sense of communion with the powers of the universe, and amicable relations
towards his God. Like my moun=
tain
Plymouth Brother, he knows the Lord.
His religion does not repose upon a choice of logic; it is the poetr=
y of
the man's experience, the philosophy of the history of his life. God, like a great power, like a gr=
eat
shining sun, has appeared to this simple fellow in the course of years, and
become the ground and essence of his least reflections; and you may change
creeds and dogmas by authority, or proclaim a new religion with the sound of
trumpets, if you will; but here is a man who has his own thoughts, and will
stubbornly adhere to them in good and evil. He is a Catholic, a Protestant, or=
a Plymouth
Brother, in the same indefeasible sense that a man is not a woman, or a wom=
an
not a man. For he could not v=
ary
from his faith, unless he could eradicate all memory of the past, and, in a
strict and not a conventional meaning, change his mind.
=
I was
now drawing near to Cassagnas, a cluster of black roofs upon the hillside, =
in
this wild valley, among chestnut gardens, and looked upon in the clear air =
by
many rocky peaks. The road al=
ong
the Mimente is yet new, nor have the mountaineers recovered their surprise =
when
the first cart arrived at Cassagnas.
But although it lay thus apart from the current of men's business, t=
his
hamlet had already made a figure in the history of France. Hard by, in caverns of the mountai=
n, was
one of the five arsenals of the Camisards; where they laid up clothes and c=
orn
and arms against necessity, forged bayonets and sabres, and made themselves=
gunpowder
with willow charcoal and saltpetre boiled in kettles. To the same caves, amid this
multifarious industry, the sick and wounded were brought up to heal; and th=
ere
they were visited by the two surgeons, Chabrier and Tavan, and secretly nur=
sed
by women of the neighbourhood.
Of the five legions into which the Camisards w=
ere
divided, it was the oldest and the most obscure that had its magazines by
Cassagnas. This was the band =
of
Spirit Seguier; men who had joined their voices with his in the 68th Psalm =
as
they marched down by night on the archpriest of the Cevennes. Seguier, promoted to heaven, was
succeeded by Salomon Couderc, whom Cavalier treats in his memoirs as
chaplain-general to the whole army of the Camisards. He was a prophet; a great reader o=
f the
heart, who admitted people to the sacrament or refused them, by 'intensively
viewing every man' between the eyes; and had the most of the Scriptures off=
by rote. And this was surely happy; since i=
n a
surprise in August 1703, he lost his mule, his portfolios, and his Bible. It is only strange that they were =
not
surprised more often and more effectually; for this legion of Cassagnas was
truly patriarchal in its theory of war, and camped without sentries, leaving
that duty to the angels of the God for whom they fought. This is a token, not only of their
faith, but of the trackless country where they harboured. M. de Caladon, taking a stroll one =
fine
day, walked without warning into their midst, as he might have walked into =
'a
flock of sheep in a plain,' and found some asleep and some awake and
psalm-singing. A traitor had =
need
of no recommendation to insinuate himself among their ranks, beyond 'his
faculty of singing psalms'; and even the prophet Salomon 'took him into a
particular friendship.' Thus,=
among
their intricate hills, the rustic troop subsisted; and history can attribute
few exploits to them but sacraments and ecstasies.
People of this tough and simple stock will not=
, as
I have just been saying, prove variable in religion; nor will they get near=
er
to apostasy than a mere external conformity like that of Naaman in the hous=
e of
Rimmon. When Louis XVI., in t=
he
words of the edict, 'convinced by the uselessness of a century of persecuti=
ons,
and rather from necessity than sympathy,' granted at last a royal grace of
toleration, Cassagnas was still Protestant; and to a man, it is so to this
day. There is, indeed, one fa=
mily
that is not Protestant, but neither is it Catholic. It is that of a Catholic cure in r=
evolt,
who has taken to his bosom a schoolmistress. And his conduct, it is worth notin=
g, is
disapproved by the Protestant villagers.
'It is a bad idea for a man,' said one, 'to go
back from his engagements.'
The villagers whom I saw seemed intelligent af=
ter
a countrified fashion, and were all plain and dignified in manner. As a Protestant myself, I was well
looked upon, and my acquaintance with history gained me further respect.
'It's a bad idea for a man to change,' said he;
and the remark was generally applauded.
That was not the opinion of the priest and sol=
dier
at Our Lady of the Snows. But=
this
is a different race; and perhaps the same great-heartedness that upheld the=
m to
resist, now enables them to differ in a kind spirit. For courage respects courage; but =
where
a faith has been trodden out, we may look for a mean and narrow
population. The true work of =
Bruce
and Wallace was the union of the nations; not that they should stand apart a
while longer, skirmishing upon their borders; but that, when the time came,
they might unite with self-respect.
The merchant was much interested in my journey,
and thought it dangerous to sleep afield.
'There are the wolves,' said he; 'and then it =
is
known you are an Englishman. =
The
English have always long purses, and it might very well enter into some one=
's
head to deal you an ill blow some night.'
I told him I was not much afraid of such
accidents; and at any rate judged it unwise to dwell upon alarms or consider
small perils in the arrangement of life.&n=
bsp;
Life itself, I submitted, was a far too risky business as a whole to
make each additional particular of danger worth regard. 'Something,' said I, 'might burst =
in
your inside any day of the week, and there would be an end of you, if you w=
ere
locked into your room with three turns of the key.'
'Cependant,' said he, 'coucher dehors!'
'God,' said I, 'is everywhere.'
'Cependant, coucher dehors!' he repeated, and =
his
voice was eloquent of terror.
He was the only person, in all my voyage, who =
saw
anything hardy in so simple a proceeding; although many considered it
superfluous. Only one, on the=
other
hand, professed much delight in the idea; and that was my Plymouth Brother,=
who
cried out, when I told him I sometimes preferred sleeping under the stars t=
o a
close and noisy ale-house, 'Now I see that you know the Lord!'
The merchant asked me for one of my cards as I=
was
leaving, for he said I should be something to talk of in the future, and
desired me to make a note of his request and reason; a desire with which I =
have
thus complied.
A little after two I struck across the Mimente,
and took a rugged path southward up a hillside covered with loose stones and
tufts of heather. At the top, as is the habit of the country, the path
disappeared; and I left my she-ass munching heather, and went forward alone=
to
seek a road.
I was now on the separation of two vast
water-sheds; behind me all the streams were bound for the Garonne and the
Western Ocean; before me was the basin of the Rhone. Hence, as from the Lozere, you can=
see
in clear weather the shining of the Gulf of Lyons; and perhaps from here th=
e soldiers
of Salomon may have watched for the topsails of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, and =
the
long-promised aid from England. You
may take this ridge as lying in the heart of the country of the Camisards; =
four
of the five legions camped all round it and almost within view--Salomon and
Joani to the north, Castanet and Roland to the south; and when Julien had
finished his famous work, the devastation of the High Cevennes, which lasted
all through October and November 1703, and during which four hundred and si=
xty
villages and hamlets were, with fire and pickaxe, utterly subverted, a man
standing on this eminence would have looked forth upon a silent, smokeless,=
and
dispeopled land. Time and man=
's
activity have now repaired these ruins; Cassagnas is once more roofed and
sending up domestic smoke; and in the chestnut gardens, in low and leafy
corners, many a prosperous farmer returns, when the day's work is done, to =
his children
and bright hearth. And still =
it was
perhaps the wildest view of all my journey. Peak upon peak, chain upon chain of
hills ran surging southward, channelled and sculptured by the winter stream=
s,
feathered from head to foot with chestnuts, and here and there breaking out
into a coronal of cliffs. The=
sun,
which was still far from setting, sent a drift of misty gold across the
hill-tops, but the valleys were already plunged in a profound and quiet sha=
dow.
A very old shepherd, hobbling on a pair of sti=
cks,
and wearing a black cap of liberty, as if in honour of his nearness to the
grave, directed me to the road for St. Germain de Calberte. There was something solemn in the
isolation of this infirm and ancient creature. Where he dwelt, how he got upon th=
is
high ridge, or how he proposed to get down again, were more than I could
fancy. Not far off upon my ri=
ght
was the famous Plan de Font Morte, where Poul with his Armenian sabre slash=
ed
down the Camisards of Seguier.
This, methought, might be some Rip van Winkle of the war, who had lo=
st
his comrades, fleeing before Poul, and wandered ever since upon the
mountains. It might be news t=
o him
that Cavalier had surrendered, or Roland had fallen fighting with his back
against an olive. And while I=
was
thus working on my fancy, I heard him hailing in broken tones, and saw him
waving me to come back with one of his two sticks. I had already got some way past hi=
m;
but, leaving Modestine once more, retraced my steps.
Alas, it was a very commonplace affair. The old gentleman had forgot to as=
k the
pedlar what he sold, and wished to remedy this neglect.
I told him sternly, 'Nothing.'
'Nothing?' cried he.
I repeated 'Nothing,' and made off.
It's odd to think of, but perhaps I thus becam=
e as
inexplicable to the old man as he had been to me.
The road lay under chestnuts, and though I saw=
a
hamlet or two below me in the vale, and many lone houses of the chestnut
farmers, it was a very solitary march all afternoon; and the evening began
early underneath the trees. B=
ut I
heard the voice of a woman singing some sad, old, endless ballad not far
off. It seemed to be about lo=
ve and
a bel amoureux, her handsome sweetheart; and I wished I could have taken up=
the
strain and answered her, as I went on upon my invisible woodland way, weavi=
ng,
like Pippa in the poem, my own thoughts with hers. What could I have told her? Little enough; and yet all the hea=
rt
requires. How the world gives=
and
takes away, and brings sweethearts near only to separate them again into
distant and strange lands; but to love is the great amulet which makes the
world a garden; and 'hope, which comes to all,' outwears the accidents of l=
ife,
and reaches with tremulous hand beyond the grave and death. Easy to say: yea, but also, by God=
's
mercy, both easy and grateful to believe!
We struck at last into a wide white high-road
carpeted with noiseless dust. The
night had come; the moon had been shining for a long while upon the opposite
mountain; when on turning a corner my donkey and I issued ourselves into her
light. I had emptied out my b=
randy
at Florac, for I could bear the stuff no longer, and replaced it with some
generous and scented Volnay; and now I drank to the moon's sacred majesty u=
pon
the road. It was but a couple=
of
mouthfuls; yet I became thenceforth unconscious of my limbs, and my blood
flowed with luxury. Even Mode=
stine was
inspired by this purified nocturnal sunshine, and bestirred her little hoof=
s as
to a livelier measure. The ro=
ad
wound and descended swiftly among masses of chestnuts. Hot dust rose from our feet and fl=
owed
away. Our two shadows--mine
deformed with the knapsack, hers comically bestridden by the pack--now lay
before us clearly outlined on the road, and now, as we turned a corner, went
off into the ghostly distance, and sailed along the mountain like clouds. From time to time a warm wind rust=
led
down the valley, and set all the chestnuts dangling their bunches of foliage
and fruit; the ear was filled with whispering music, and the shadows danced=
in
tune. And next moment the bre=
eze
had gone by, and in all the valley nothing moved except our travelling feet=
. On
the opposite slope, the monstrous ribs and gullies of the mountain were fai=
ntly
designed in the moonshine; and high overhead, in some lone house, there bur=
ned
one lighted window, one square spark of red in the huge field of sad noctur=
nal
colouring.
At a certain point, as I went downward, turning
many acute angles, the moon disappeared behind the hill; and I pursued my w=
ay
in great darkness, until another turning shot me without preparation into S=
t.
Germain de Calberte. The plac=
e was
asleep and silent, and buried in opaque night. Only from a single open door,
some lamplight escaped upon the road to show me that I was come among men's
habitations. The two last gos=
sips
of the evening, still talking by a garden wall, directed me to the inn. The landlady was getting her chick=
s to
bed; the fire was already out, and had, not without grumbling, to be rekind=
led;
half an hour later, and I must have gone supperless to roost.
=
When I
awoke (Thursday, 2nd October), and, hearing a great flourishing of cocks and
chuckling of contented hens, betook me to the window of the clean and
comfortable room where I had slept the night, I looked forth on a sunshiny
morning in a deep vale of chestnut gardens. It was still early, and the cockcr=
ows,
and the slanting lights, and the long shadows encouraged me to be out and l=
ook
round me.
St. Germain de Calberte is a great parish nine
leagues round about. At the p=
eriod
of the wars, and immediately before the devastation, it was inhabited by two
hundred and seventy-five families, of which only nine were Catholic; and it
took the cure seventeen September days to go from house to house on horseba=
ck
for a census. But the place i=
tself,
although capital of a canton, is scarce larger than a hamlet. It lies terraced across a steep sl=
ope in
the midst of mighty chestnuts. The
Protestant chapel stands below upon a shoulder; in the midst of the town is=
the
quaint old Catholic church.
It was here that poor Du Chayla, the Christian
martyr, kept his library and held a court of missionaries; here he had built
his tomb, thinking to lie among a grateful population whom he had redeemed =
from
error; and hither on the morrow of his death they brought the body, pierced
with two- and-fifty wounds, to be interred. Clad in his priestly robes, he was=
laid
out in state in the church. T=
he cure,
taking his text from Second Samuel, twentieth chapter and twelfth verse, 'A=
nd
Amasa wallowed in his blood in the highway,' preached a rousing sermon, and
exhorted his brethren to die each at his post, like their unhappy and
illustrious superior. In the =
midst
of this eloquence there came a breeze that Spirit Seguier was near at hand;=
and
behold! all the assembly took to their horses' heels, some east, some west,=
and
the cure himself as far as Alais.
Strange was the position of this little Cathol=
ic
metropolis, a thimbleful of Rome, in such a wild and contrary
neighbourhood. On the one han=
d, the
legion of Salomon overlooked it from Cassagnas; on the other, it was cut off
from assistance by the legion of Roland at Mialet. The cure, Louvrelenil, although he=
took
a panic at the arch-priest's funeral, and so hurriedly decamped to Alais, s=
tood
well by his isolated pulpit, and thence uttered fulminations against the cr=
imes
of the Protestants. Salomon besieged the village for an hour and a half, but
was beaten back. The militiamen, on guard before the cure's door, could be
heard, in the black hours, singing Protestant psalms and holding friendly t=
alk
with the insurgents. And in t=
he
morning, although not a shot had been fired, there would not be a round of
powder in their flasks. Where=
was
it gone? All handed over to the Camisards for a consideration. Untrusty guardians for an isolated
priest!
That these continual stirs were once busy in S=
t.
Germain de Calberte, the imagination with difficulty receives; all is now so
quiet, the pulse of human life now beats so low and still in this hamlet of=
the
mountains. Boys followed me a great way off, like a timid sort of lion-hunt=
ers;
and people turned round to have a second look, or came out of their houses,=
as
I went by. My passage was the=
first
event, you would have fancied, since the Camisards. There was nothing rude or forward =
in
this observation; it was but a pleased and wondering scrutiny, like that of=
oxen
or the human infant; yet it wearied my spirits, and soon drove me from the
street.
I took refuge on the terraces, which are here
greenly carpeted with sward, and tried to imitate with a pencil the inimita=
ble
attitudes of the chestnuts as they bear up their canopy of leaves. Ever and again a little wind went =
by,
and the nuts dropped all around me, with a light and dull sound, upon the
sward. The noise was as of a =
thin
fall of great hailstones; but there went with it a cheerful human sentiment=
of
an approaching harvest and farmers rejoicing in their gains. Looking up, I could see the brown =
nut
peering through the husk, which was already gaping; and between the stems t=
he
eye embraced an amphitheatre of hill, sunlit and green with leaves.
I have not often enjoyed a place more deeply.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> I moved in an atmosphere of pleasu=
re,
and felt light and quiet and content.
But perhaps it was not the place alone that so disposed my spirit. Perhaps some one was thinking of m=
e in
another country; or perhaps some thought of my own had come and gone unnoti=
ced,
and yet done me good. For some
thoughts, which sure would be the most beautiful, vanish before we can righ=
tly
scan their features; as though a god, travelling by our green highways, sho=
uld
but ope the door, give one smiling look into the house, and go again for ev=
er. Was it Apollo, or Mercury, or Love=
with
folded wings? Who shall say?<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> But we go the lighter about our
business, and feel peace and pleasure in our hearts.
I dined with a pair of Catholics. They agreed in the condemnation of=
a young
man, a Catholic, who had married a Protestant girl and gone over to the
religion of his wife. A Prote=
stant
born they could understand and respect; indeed, they seemed to be of the mi=
nd
of an old Catholic woman, who told me that same day there was no difference
between the two sects, save that 'wrong was more wrong for the Catholic,' w=
ho
had more light and guidance; but this of a man's desertion filled them with
contempt.
'It is a bad idea for a man to change,' said o=
ne.
It may have been accidental, but you see how t=
his
phrase pursued me; and for myself, I believe it is the current philosophy in
these parts. I have some diff=
iculty
in imagining a better. It's n=
ot
only a great flight of confidence for a man to change his creed and go out =
of
his family for heaven's sake; but the odds are--nay, and the hope is--that,
with all this great transition in the eyes of man, he has not changed himse=
lf a
hairbreadth to the eyes of God.
Honour to those who do so, for the wrench is sore. But it argues something narrow, wh=
ether
of strength or weakness, whether of the prophet or the fool, in those who c=
an
take a sufficient interest in such infinitesimal and human operations, or w=
ho can
quit a friendship for a doubtful process of the mind. And I think I should not leave my =
old
creed for another, changing only words for other words; but by some brave
reading, embrace it in spirit and truth, and find wrong as wrong for me as =
for
the best of other communions.
The phylloxera was in the neighbourhood; and
instead of wine we drank at dinner a more economical juice of the grape--La
Parisienne, they call it. It is made by putting the fruit whole into a cask
with water; one by one the berries ferment and burst; what is drunk during =
the
day is supplied at night in water: so, with ever another pitcher from the w=
ell,
and ever another grape exploding and giving out its strength, one cask of P=
arisienne
may last a family till spring. It
is, as the reader will anticipate, a feeble beverage, but very pleasant to =
the
taste.
What with dinner and coffee, it was long past
three before I left St. Germain de Calberte. I went down beside the Gardon of M=
ialet,
a great glaring watercourse devoid of water, and through St. Etienne de Val=
lee Francaise,
or Val Francesque, as they used to call it; and towards evening began to as=
cend
the hill of St. Pierre. It wa=
s a
long and steep ascent. Behind=
me an
empty carriage returning to St. Jean du Gard kept hard upon my tracks, and =
near
the summit overtook me. The d=
river,
like the rest of the world, was sure I was a pedlar; but, unlike others, he=
was
sure of what I had to sell. H=
e had
noticed the blue wool which hung out of my pack at either end; and from thi=
s he
had decided, beyond my power to alter his decision, that I dealt in blue-wo=
ol
collars, such as decorate the neck of the French draught-horse.
I had hurried to the topmost powers of Modesti=
ne,
for I dearly desired to see the view upon the other side before the day had
faded. But it was night when I
reached the summit; the moon was riding high and clear; and only a few grey=
streaks
of twilight lingered in the west. =
span>A
yawning valley, gulfed in blackness, lay like a hole in created nature at m=
y feet;
but the outline of the hills was sharp against the sky. There was Mount Aigoal, the strong=
hold
of Castanet. And Castanet, no=
t only
as an active undertaking leader, deserves some mention among Camisards; for=
there
is a spray of rose among his laurel; and he showed how, even in a public
tragedy, love will have its way. In
the high tide of war he married, in his mountain citadel, a young and pretty
lass called Mariette. There w=
ere
great rejoicings; and the bridegroom released five- and-twenty prisoners in
honour of the glad event. Sev=
en
months afterwards, Mariette, the Princess of the Cevennes, as they called h=
er
in derision, fell into the hands of the authorities, where it was like to h=
ave
gone hard with her. But Casta=
net
was a man of execution, and loved his wife. He fell on Valleraugue, and got a =
lady
there for a hostage; and for the first and last time in that war there was =
an
exchange of prisoners. Their
daughter, pledge of some starry night upon Mount Aigoal, has left descendan=
ts
to this day.
Modestine and I--it was our last meal
together--had a snack upon the top of St. Pierre, I on a heap of stones, she
standing by me in the moonlight and decorously eating bread out of my
hand. The poor brute would ea=
t more
heartily in this manner; for she had a sort of affection for me, which I was
soon to betray.
It was a long descent upon St. Jean du Gard, a=
nd
we met no one but a carter, visible afar off by the glint of the moon on his
extinguished lantern.
Before ten o'clock we had got in and were at
supper; fifteen miles and a stiff hill in little beyond six hours!
<=
span
style=3D'font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:16.0pt;line-height:115%;mso-fa=
reast-font-family:
Calibri'>FAREWELL, MODESTINE!<=
span
style=3D'font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:16.0pt;line-height:115%;mso-fa=
reast-font-family:
Calibri'>
=
On
examination, on the morning of October 3rd, Modestine was pronounced unfit =
for
travel. She would need at lea=
st two
days' repose, according to the ostler; but I was now eager to reach Alais f=
or
my letters; and, being in a civilised country of stage-coaches, I determine=
d to
sell my lady friend and be off by the diligence that afternoon. Our yesterday's march, with the
testimony of the driver who had pursued us up the long hill of St. Pierre,
spread a favourable notion of my donkey's capabilities. Intending purchasers were aware of=
an
unrivalled opportunity. Befor=
e ten
I had an offer of twenty-five francs; and before noon, after a desperate
engagement, I sold her, saddle and all, for five- and-thirty. The pecuniary gain is not obvious,=
but I
had bought freedom into the bargain.
St Jean du Gard is a large place, and largely
Protestant. The maire, a Prot=
estant,
asked me to help him in a small matter which is itself characteristic of the
country. The young women of t=
he
Cevennes profit by the common religion and the difference of the language t=
o go
largely as governesses into England; and here was one, a native of Mialet, =
struggling
with English circulars from two different agencies in London. I gave what h=
elp
I could; and volunteered some advice, which struck me as being excellent.
One thing more I note. The phylloxera has ravaged the vin=
eyards
in this neighbourhood; and in the early morning, under some chestnuts by th=
e river,
I found a party of men working with a cider-press. I could not at first make out what=
they
were after, and asked one fellow to explain.
'Making cider,' he said. 'Oui, c'est comme ca. Comme dans le nord!'
There was a ring of sarcasm in his voice: the
country was going to the devil.
It was not until I was fairly seated by the
driver, and rattling through a rocky valley with dwarf olives, that I became
aware of my bereavement. I had lost Modestine. Up to that moment I had thought I =
hated
her; but now she was gone,
'And oh! T=
he
difference to me!'
For twelve days we had been fast companions; we
had travelled upwards of a hundred and twenty miles, crossed several
respectable ridges, and jogged along with our six legs by many a rocky and =
many
a boggy by-road. After the first day, although sometimes I was hurt and dis=
tant
in manner, I still kept my patience; and as for her, poor soul! she had com=
e to
regard me as a god. She loved=
to
eat out of my hand. She was
patient, elegant in form, the colour of an ideal mouse, and inimitably
small. Her faults were those =
of her
race and sex; her virtues were her own. Farewell, and if for ever--
Father Adam wept when he sold her to me; after=
I
had sold her in my turn, I was tempted to follow his example; and being alo=
ne
with a stage-driver and four or five agreeable young men, I did not hesitat=
e to
yield to my emotion.