Le Morvan during the Middle Ages--Legendary horrors--Forest of La
Goulotte--La Croix Chavannes--La Croix Mordienne--Hôtel de
Chanty--Château de Lomervo--A French Bluebeard--Citadel of Lingou.
But I must return from my Andalusian belle to the rugged Le Morvan,--a
patriotic, but, in spite of the broken finger, by no means so
captivating a subject.
In feudal times--indeed, even so late as the last century--the district
was a perfect nest of cut-throats, where no one could venture in safety
for any honest purpose; without roads, and without police; full of dark
caverns and half-demolished castles, affording all kinds of facilities
for retreat and concealment; and thus it became the favourite rendezvous
of the worst and most ferocious characters of those lawless times. It is
widely different now. The hunter or the traveller--a woman or a
child--may ramble through the length and breadth of its forests, equally
in vain hoping for the excitement or fearing the danger of any
adventure, beyond the common one of seeing a wolf or wild boar threading
his way amongst the trees--a matter of no consequence at all. If,
however, you love to collect wild and mournful tales--tales, even, of
horror, with which to rivet the attention of the family group over the
fire in the winter evenings,--stop at every ruined wall over which the
lizard is harmlessly creeping; stop at every massive tower in which the
owl is screeching--at every large isolated stone under which the serpent
is hissing; linger along each tortuous path, and your peasant guide will
tell you a tradition for each--for all.
Thus, for instance: you are perhaps a few paces in front of him, in the
forest of La Goulotte; and as the mid-day sun glances through the boughs
above you, you see its rays rest upon a cross at a little distance; it
was, you think, placed there for the rude worshippers of the province,
and you contemplate it with complacent reverence, till Pierre comes up
with you. "'Tis La Croix Chavannes, Monsieur, _la croix sinistre_. See!
in the narrow pass between the two mountains, its black and moss-covered
arms extended; at the end of each is a large knob, resembling a
threatening hand." You walk on, and find the cross riddled with ball,
chipped and notched, and carved with odd names. By the time you have
reached it, Pierre has told you it was set on the spot where, many a
long year ago, the Marquis de Chavannes was found, deluged in blood and
quite dead; he had been pierced through the heart by a treacherous
rival, who had joined his hunting party, and who basely took advantage
of a moment when, in ardent pursuit of the grisly boar, De Chavannes was
utterly unsuspicious of his evil intentions.
A little further on is another cross, at the entrance of a deep, dark
gorge: What does that cross mean? "That one is called La Croix
Mordienne, Monsieur; at its foot our forefathers knelt to recommend
their souls to God, before they ventured their lives in the dangers of
Les Grand Ravins, where too many had been greeted by the bullet or the
dagger." The granite steps of this cross--this cross which was erected
for worship--are worn deep by the knees of suppliants for protection
against the cruelty of their fellow-men; and it is even a more
melancholy monument of the ferocity of those times, than the one which
records the assassination of the unsuspecting Marquis de Chavannes.
Pursue your way, and, crossing a wild and marshy heath, you notice a
lonely house surrounded by thorny broom, the aspect of which is
forbidding, though it is gaily painted. Surely, you think, it can only
be the gloomy tales with which my guide has beguiled this morning's
walk, that make one suspect there is a history connected with that
house; and you ask him its name. "That is Chanty, Monsieur; that was
once an inn. The landlord was a frightful character, even for his own
times. When the doomed traveller halted at his door to seek shelter from
the storm, or to refresh himself and steed the better to encounter the
scorching heat, the villain drugged his wine, and, at nightfall,
following him into the forest, despatched and robbed his then helpless
victim. Or perhaps he would detain him with stirring tales of forest
life, till he found himself too late prudently to go further that night;
and, on his guard against every person but the right, ordering a bed of
his treacherous host, would fall into that slumber from which the
miscreant took safe means to prevent his ever awaking. When, after many
years of impunity in the commission of these fearful crimes, the
officers of justice were at last set upon him, and his house was
searched, in the cellar were found fifteen headless skeletons!"
Such a mass of silent, awful testimony perhaps never was produced to
substantiate the allegation of similar villany against any man; and
atrocities like these, of the early and middle ages, have given their
character to the legends of Le Morvan, which, still carefully related
from one generation to another, are so impressed on the minds of the
people, that the honest peasant of the present day would rather make a
circuit of a dozen or twenty miles, than pass in the deepening twilight
near the scenes to which they relate. Not all the gold of Peru--no, nor
even of California--would tempt _Les Pastoures_ to graze their flocks or
herds near the scene of these horrid events, or pass them when the stars
are spangling the dark arch of heaven.
Here also may be seen the solid walls, the array of towers, the high
belfry, the iron gates, and the ponderous drawbridges of the Château de
Lomervo; and many are the dependent buildings, courts, and gardens,
surrounded by the thick copse wood that covers its domain, which extends
over three neighbouring hills. Under the principal façade is a large
lake, whose blue waves bathe the walls; an immense mirror, ever
reflecting the numberless turrets, and the grotesque birds and beasts
which decorate the extremity of every waterspout; wherein, too, the
tranquil marble giants, who support the broad balcony on their heads,
seem to contemplate and admire their own imperturbable
countenances--countenances that betrayed no shade of feeling at all
that must have passed before their eyes. The gathering of armed knights
for war or revelry; the rejoicings for the birth of an heir, or the
lamentations for the death of the stern gray-headed lord; the bridal of
one lovely daughter of the house of Lomervo, or the solitary departure
of the mail-clad lover of another for the Crusades. But, it is said,
they saw much more than all this: according to popular rumour, these
calm deep waters are the cold and mute depositories of frightfully
tragic secrets. One bright spring morning in the very olden time, says
the tradition, a Lord of this domain left his castle. It was when the
sweet violet first cast its odours on the breeze, when the bright and
abundant bloom of the lilac and laburnum gracefully decorated the
gardens, and the country was reclad in all the charming freshness of the
season. After a short absence, he returned, accompanied by a lovely
bride;--but ere long she died. He went again, returning with another,
and was again received by his vassals with acclamations of joy; but
gloomy suspicions at last arose, for in this way, in succeeding years,
were brought to the Castle eleven young and beautiful damsels. One by
one, they all disappeared. What became of them? No one knew, or, if they
did, dared to tell. When, however, the long-dreaded lord was dead, some
old women declared, that as he became tired of each wife, he stabbed her
at midnight in one of his dungeons, took a sack from a heap which he
kept in the corner, and, sewing her up with his own hands, carried her
noiselessly to the water-gate, and laid her in the bottom of his boat.
Silently and rapidly he rowed to the centre of the lake, and coolly
dropped in his hapless victim amongst the sheltering reeds.
"Ah! Monsieur," the village gossips will still tell you, as they make
the sign of the cross, and tremble till you see their very stuff gowns
shake again; "'tis all true, Monsieur; twenty times have we seen them in
the moonlight--twenty times have we seen the poor souls, in their long
white robes, with their pale faces, and the spot of blood on the left
side, wandering over the lake." Poor Bluebeard, for whom in childhood we
used to feel such awe, was a fool to this baron bold.
There, a little in front of you, is the fortified village of Chamou,
which in former years defended the eastern opening of Les Grand Ravins;
also Lingou, an old citadel, three stories high, whose walls, now
cracked and ivy bound, guarded them on the south. This piece of feudal
architecture, full of trap-doors and dungeons, subterranean passages,
and secret stairs, is another of the places dreaded and abhorred by the
peasantry of Le Morvan; for near the walls, they say, at certain
periods, sounds can be distinctly heard under ground, funeral chaunts,
and the tolling of bells; and if you have the daring to apply your ear
to the sod, you will be able to distinguish sighs and sobs, and the dull
rattle of the earth thrown upon the victim's coffin.